


The Eye of Osiris

by Blay130



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pleashipping, Prideshipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:22:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 34
Words: 251,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28081617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blay130/pseuds/Blay130
Summary: Kaiba's intrusion into the Pharaoh's afterlife is met with unintended repercussions as his final duel with Atem goes awry. Bound together as allies in the aftermath, the pair have a chance to finally settle old scores while a foe from beyond the grave conspires to return to the living world in Kaiba's place. Post-DSoD. Prideshipping. Slow burn.
Relationships: Atem/Kaiba Seto, Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi, Kaiba Seto/Yami Yuugi | Atem
Kudos: 18





	1. Prologue

**AN:** This story set to begin as _Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions_ ends. The characters are based on the versions from the English dub of the anime but will also reference some events from the manga as well.

* * *

**Prologue: The day prior to Kaiba's departure to the afterlife.**

**Roland**

The helicopter touched down smoothly and Mr. Kaiba disembarked without a look back or a word of instruction.

I paused out of habit, leaving a space between my employer and I which would normally be filled by Mokuba Kaiba's swift pursuit of his brother. Habits are certainly hard to break. It hadn't escaped my notice that Mr. Kaiba had chosen a time when he knew his younger brother would be unavailable in which to respond to the invitation of Maximillion Pegasus. I wondered how it was that such an innocuous scheduling conflict could seem so suspicious.

"Reckon it'll be a long wait?" The pilot called back to me, watching as our boss was deemed out of earshot. He was a new hire, no one else would have needed to ask the question knowing just how much Mr. Kaiba disliked this place and its owner. I glanced up at the familiar castle that crowned the island on which _M_ _r._ _Pegasus_ had hosted his Duelist Kingdom. "I doubt it." I replied.

I straightened my necktie and exited the helicopter quickly in the hope of closing the gap created by my pause.

Mr. Pegasus was a strange entity for any security personnel to be briefed on - both a corporate rival and business partner at any given time and happy to discard one role for the other at a moments notice. Despite appearances, the man was nothing to disregard. Both his weaponized-eccentricity and previous attempt to seize control of Kaiba Corporation was a case-study assigned to all who applied for seniority within the company's security force.

While I contemplated this Mr. Kaiba had nearly arrived at the top of the looming stone staircase that preceded the castle's front door and I took two-steps at a time to catch up to him. He paused as he reached the top, raising his head to stare at some far off section of the castle's battlement.

It would've been hard to tell if he was ignoring me, giving me a chance to catch up or both were it not for the look in his eyes. Close as I was now I could note they held a certain emptiness. It was a strange, contemplative expression that I wasn't used to, but Mr. Kaiba's demeanor had been much duller in recent months. I reached the approved distance behind him while still struggling to place the muted expression. On the face of any other young man it may have looked liked longing.

He didn't stop staring at the section of castle wall as I assumed my position but nevertheless made it clear without words that my delay had not gone unnoticed. His gaze hardened abruptly and he shot a blistering glare at me over his shoulder.

Mr. Kaiba's dislike of the castle and its owner was made evident by his dark expression and overly-irritable mood. As if prompted by the thought the castle door beyond us opened in a single solid motion to break Mr. Kaiba's attention.

Pegasus's man greeted us with a brisk formality and waved us into the foyer. He was an older man than I, gaunt in the face but with eyes equally hidden by sunglasses. Croquet, his name was I believe.

I wondered if I would still be performing my duties at the side of my employer when I was his age, as surely as he still performed his duties for Mr. Pegasus. If it was to be my choice I would certainly continue in my position, though unbelievable happenstances that defied conventional logic seemed to stalk Mr. Kaiba with an alarming regularity. Or had. A great deal of the strangeness that seemed to orbit the Kaiba brothers had made itself scarce in recent months, oddly coinciding with Mr. Kaiba's dampened mood. While unwanted by Mr. Kaiba himself I wondered if this sudden summons by Pegasus represented a return to form.

I watched as Mr. Kaiba waved off Mr. Croquet and paced impatiently around the foyer like a tiger caged in a zoo. I turned my attention to Mr. Croquet, searching his careful composure for any clue to the nature of this invitation. I wished for a code between men in our position; some sort of honor system to the likes of 'if your employer is about to attempt to murder, kidnap or hypnotize my employer, please give me a nod of warning so I may respond to the best of my abilities and I will return the favor'. Of course no such system existed. It was likely our respective employers were too unpredictable and would make any such agreement moot anyway.

From the stair case above us the familiar voice of Mr. Pegasus rang out like a bell with a long peel of "Kaiba-boooooooooooy~."

Mr. Kaiba's pacing stopped and he turned on his heel to level his glare at Mr. Pegasus on the landing above him.

"Pegasus." He snarled - not bothering to sheath his raw irritation at the older man's address.

Mr. Kaiba snatched the envelop containing the hand-written letter of invitation from his coat pocket and threw it to the floor to grind beneath his boot. I wonder if he had brought it all the way here for just that purpose.

"Don't think you can summon me all the way over here to your little fantasy-land whenever you feel like it! Next time try picking up a phone." He spat.

Mr. Pegasus's single visible eye watched the letter with a coy grin as it was shredded beneath Mr. Kaiba's foot and then laughed with exaggeration. "How very theatrical you are, Kaiba boy."

Mr. Kaiba grunted in response and stilled immediately.

Waving to the staircase with a sweep of his hand Mr. Pegasus continued without pause. "I have very humbly requested your presence because I have something to show you that you may just find interesting. Please, won't you join me upstairs?" he drawled.

Mr. Kaiba's eyes narrowed. After a speculative pause he ascended the staircase and both I and Mr. Croquet followed at a small distance behind.

With another wave of his frilly sleeves Mr. Pegasus ushered Mr. Kaiba and myself into a large conference room. A long and elaborately carved wooden table spun the length of the space with eight chairs on either side of its polished mahogany expanse and a projector and screen set up at the end. A crystal ashtray was placed in the middle. Pegasus was keeping a close eye on Mr. Kaiba, it seemed.

I took my place beside the door we had just entered through. Mr. Kaiba took several stiff paces into the room like a wary tomcat.

Mr. Pegasus apparently expected this. The older man leisurely settled into a nearby chair and watched with a look of amusement as Mr. Kaiba's eyes jumped from one detail to the next until he had made a full scan of the conference room. He glared at Pegasus's open expression of mirth and yanked out the chair nearest to him from under the table, seating himself with several empty chairs between he and Mr. Pegasus.

Mr. Pegasus broke the silence before it could settle in. "I hear sales of the new Duel Disk are projected to exceed expectations," he cooed cheerily; smart to begin with a compliment. I had noticed Mr. Kaiba wasn't immune to certain kinds of flattery, though he didn't like to appear susceptible to anything.

Mr. Kaiba grunted. "You heard that right. Pre-orders opened yesterday and the numbers are already above initial projections."

"Amazing Kaiba-boy, how do you do it?" Pegasus mocked gleefully "Especially given all that disintegrating business at your little exhibition with Yugi-boy" he added, his single eye narrowing like a predator sizing up its prey.

Mr. Kaiba scoffed, determined to ignore the little jab. "Everyone in that stadium came for a show, and they got it. But I doubt you called me here just to talk shop." He crossed his arms and his legs, closing off the topic.

"Now unlike you, I actually run my business so my time is worth something." He paused, a hand jabbing toward the blank projector screen. "Whatever this is, just get on with it so you can stop wasting my day."

Pegasus chuckled, slowly blinking as his lazy grin continued. "No time for banter? Such a shame. It feels like I see less and less of you since the Pharaoh departed. Pity he returned only for you to miss seeing him once more." He shrugged, the gesture overly large like an actor in a pantomime.

I imagine that even with only one eye Pegasus couldn't have missed the way Mr. Kaiba's shoulders twitched and his hand curled into a fist at the mention of 'the Pharaoh'. I could see it from across the room. Mr. Pegasus continued with an unchanged tone "Well then I suppose we best get straight to business."

He leaned on his chair armrest and waved his wrist around in a small circular motion which was apparently a sign for Mr. Croquet to spring into action.

The older man evenly surged forward with a small silver tray carrying a single projector remote. Mr. Pegasus picked up the remote and spun the wand in his hand a few times as Mr. Croquet moved back to his previous position before leveling the device at the projector at the end of the room. The apparatus whirred to life and the screen at the end of the room filled with images of an abandoned archaeological dig in Egypt. The one Mr. Kaiba had been funding until only a few days ago.

Mr. Kaiba sat forward in his chair, leaning his elbows on the table and meshing his fingers together. For the first time since their meeting had begun the grin slipped from Pegasus's face and he turned to fix Mr. Kaiba with a somber stare.

"I know what it is that your little team was looking for over there. I suppose with the Millennium Puzzle now gone that you're already working on another way to get to the Pharaoh?"

Mr. Pegasus's guess was accurate. To his credit, Mr. Kaiba turned his eyes to meet Pegasus's gaze straight on without a word of denial.

Since recovering the Cube from his duel against Diva, Mr. Kaiba had declared himself incommunicado to the majority of his staff and sequestered himself in the lab he used for rapid prototyping. The result had been the design of something that looked somewhere between a missile and a rocket ship. He hadn't elaborated on its function, only handed off the plans to Fuguta and myself to disseminate among the appropriate KaibaCorp. departments for construction.

"And?" Mr. Kaiba prompted stoically.

Pegasus leaned back in his chair and sighed, truly sighed. "Kaiba-boy, I won't bother to tell you that whatever it is your cooking up in that clever brain of yours is a bad idea, because that would make me a hypocrite."

Mr. Kaiba's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Pegasus's tone took on a wistful note and his eye stared at the nothingness in the corner of the room for a long moment. "When I was about your age I lost someone. She was just too dear and gentle for this world. A little masterpiece..." He trailed off and opened his mouth to continue before Mr. Kaiba abruptly interrupted him.

"- So you dragged your ass to Egypt, learned about some ancient magical bull and went tomb-diving. And when bringing the dead back to life didn't work out then you instead created Duel Monsters from the tablets you found." Mr. Kaiba smirked at Pegasus as the older man's expression warped slightly into a faint frown.

"Accurate, in a way" Pegasus agreed and shrugged. "Though I find your ability to gloss over all the most salient details rather telling, Kaiba-bo-"

"-Well here's where we're different" Mr. Kaiba continued as if Pegasus hadn't spoken, the volume of his voice increasing and raising a finger as he did so. "First: I don't care about bringing _him_ back to life, I just need him in front of me long enough to beat him in a duel."

The was no doubt who this 'him' being spoken of was.

Mr. Kaiba's fist clenched tightly even as he raised a second finger to drive his point home. "Second: I'm not going to rely on some ancient Egyptian mysticism to get what I want. I have tech for that."

He raised a third finger and his smirk worsened to look unpleasant "And last but not least you need a hell of a wake-up call if this little heart-to-heart in any indicator, because you're not me. So sit here and keep moping over your dead whatever, Pegasus, because I'm not done yet."

Mr. Pegasus sat very still for a long moment, the force of Mr. Kaiba's words seeming to reverberate in the room with some unseen energy as the meeting reinvigorated that undefinable something that had been missing from his manner for the last few months.

I watched from the doorway as the older man's single eye studied Mr. Kaiba's face, looking for something I couldn't see. His lips curled into another grin and this one seemed triumphant, as though he had heard exactly what he had been hoping to.

Abruptly, he breezily agreed. "Very well then." He twirled the projector remote in his hand again and pressed the button for the next slide.

A dim photograph of a dark tomb flooded with water and light from an unseen entrance behind the photographer made a stark image on the projector screen.

"As a man who - as you rightly pointed out - has made his living turning tablets from ancient tombs into trading cards, I tend to keep abreast of recent discoveries in Egypt." Pegasus purred, his cat-like grin returning to reassert itself and the drawling tones that accompanied it matching suit.

Mr. Kaiba settled back against his chair, rolling his eyes at the new slide.

"You can thank climate change for the deluge of rain that Egypt received a few weeks ago; it flooded the Nile and shifted the Delta just enough to reveal this tomb to the world." Mr. Pegasus continued. His finger flicked the remote again, a second slide of the water-logged tomb following the first, the features of the interior barely visible in the gloom. Mr. Kaiba stabbed his elbow into the arm rest of the chair and leaned on his hand in what I would have called the very picture of boredom.

"Ironically, the water managed the almost unheard of feat of keeping out all tomb robbers but the damp has caused the wooden artifacts and papyrus to perish." Pegasus pronounced with his hair swishing as he did so. Mr. Kaiba grunted in reply, clearly unimpressed. "Such a pity, because they might have given a little more context for this -"

The stone tablet on the next slide must have easily been taller than Mr. Kaiba. It looked familiar, but not quite...

Much like the 'Tablet of Lost Memories' the broken stone slab featured many figures resembling simplified renderings of the holographic creatures from the Duel Monsters card game, and just like when I had first laid eyes on the original tablet the Domino City museum its new counterpart in the photograph elicited a similarly eerie feeling. It wasn't the damaged edges or the skillful workmanship that set my nerves on high alert, but the uncanny resemblance that the two opposing figures had to Mr. Kaiba and Yugi Muto. They stood facing each other, flanked on both sides by a field of reeds or some sort of corn that easily rivaled the height of my employer's carving. Barely visible against the damaged portion was a final shape, larger than each of the others as though giant in comparison as it loomed over the rest of the carved scene. Its elbows arched over the heads of Mr. Kaiba and Mr. Muto and its hands pulled together at its core, crossing over each other to hold what my cursory trip to the Domino City Museum informed me was a flail in one hand and a crook in the other, if I was remembering correctly. His wrappings had been left to contrast against the color of his head and hands, which had been painted in a green color that was mostly faded and largely chipped away. Around the figures were so many symbols it was hard to know where to look first.

Mr. Kaiba gritted his teeth and stood so quickly and with so much force that his chair fell over behind him. I attempted to meet his gaze - to silently question him for instructions, but his attention stayed fixed on the tablet. No, 'fixed' wasn't the right word. He didn't stare at it to take it all in as you would a painting, but instead his eyes jumped from one hieroglyph to the next, rapidly roving over each symbol one at a time as though it were a real word and he was reading a sentence on a page. I found it odd, but that was normal. My employer was a deeply 'odd' young man.

"Several other fragments have been found but all of the pieces have yet to reunited so the translations aren't finished yet, of course." Mr. Pegasus's eye seemed to twinkle knowingly, the older man not deterred at all as Mr. Kaiba remained silent, enraptured with the hieroglyphs. "But at a glance I knew this section might be of some interest to you, Kaiba-boy." His mouth curled into another sly smile as Mr. Kaiba's eyes narrowed, appearing to read and then re-read a portion of the tablet multiple times.

"After all, it _is_ describing a duel to return the dead to life." Mr. Pegasus revealed after a languid pause. "The figures depicted here are quite telling, don't you think Kaiba-boy?" He circled the arm of the figure that so closely resembled my employer with a laser pointer built into the projector remote. The red dot ran the outline of what looked strangely like Mr. Kaiba's newly released Duel Disk unit. The shape and detailing of it was uncanny. "Considering that your latest Duel Disks units are your latest creation I'm rather sure that they weren't around in ancient Egypt to have their likenesses carved." He cooed, toying with his long hair idly as he did so.

Mr. Kaiba gritted his teeth, then schooled his expression into a chilly sneer. "So what? First I'm being force-fed visions of the past and now I've been upgraded to depictions of the future?" He scoffed, loudly and smirked smugly. "I've already had someone try to sell me this before. I'm still not buying."

"Oh?" Mr. Pegasus questioned, his eyebrows rising in mock shock."Even though the tablet depicts the very goal you're striving for? Another duel with the Pharaoh? You're ever so difficult to please."

Mr. Pegasus's finger rested on the button to move on to the next slide, softly tapping at it to draw attention to the motion without depressing the button. "And you're not at all curious about the rest of the tomb that this particular tablet was found in? You should be." His voice and the gesture of his finger was coy and teasing.

Mr. Kaiba didn't like to be led. To try to goad his curiosity so blatantly... I could think of no way Pegasus could possibly have made Mr. Kaiba less inclined to view the next slide.

I judged this perfectly, and Mr. Kaiba turned to me for the first time since entering the castle with an irritable expression that told me without words that we were leaving. He kicked away the toppled chair that had fallen behind him for good measure and stalked toward the door as I opened it for him.

"Wait. Kaiba." Mr. Pegasus called, all buffoonery absent from his voice.

I didn't look back, keeping my focus on Mr. Kaiba as he paused in the door frame. He turned back into the room slightly. Mr. Pegasus must have taken that invitation to finish.

"Impressive as your technology is and doubtful about 'ancient Egyptian mysticism' as you are, the two needn't be mutually exclusive in serving your purpose." His tone was stern and melancholy as though giving a difficult piece of life advice.

The two stared at each other from across the room – some silent current of reluctant understanding passing between them. Whatever Mr. Pegasus's intention, a muscle jumped in Mr. Kaiba cheek and he grunted in acknowledgement as he broke their eye contact. With a smooth flourish he pulled his phone from his coat pocket and held out the device to snap a photograph of the projector slide before sweeping out of the room.

I trailed him back to the helipad and spent the flight back to Kaiba Corporation keeping an eye on the pilot's flying while Mr. Kaiba sat awash in sullen silence, staring at the image on his phone.

**Mokuba**

The conference call ran long, so I got back to the mansion pretty late.

Dealing with KaibaCorp's USA branch was exhausting but I liked the added responsibility. I hoped Seto had deliberately been putting more and more duties onto me just slowly enough for me not to notice or get overwhelmed. He'd been acting out of it and distracted for the last few months and the alternative, that he'd accidentally been letting stuff slip through the cracks, was just too weird for me to subscribe to. Either way compared to this time last year it really felt like I was making a difference in the company. I had my own Green Initiative that I'd been working on to overhaul our manufacturing process to make it more eco-friendly and it was getting a lot of attention from the shareholders. I think Seto was putting off announcing it to the press though, just in case someone suggested getting rid of his Blue-Eyes jet in the spirit of further reducing emissions. We were going to hold a press conference about it after the media cycle from the launch of the new Duel Disks became old news but with all the Diva craziness it was going to be a while before that hype died down. If the last few weeks had taught me anything it was that the public had a weirdly high tolerance for strange things happening in Duel Monsters matches. When three quarters of a stadium gets temporarily vaporized at the unveiling of a new product and then somehow the pre-orders sell out anyway, that's when you can tell you have a killer product. All it took was my big brother standing up on a stage and telling everyone that he'd upgraded reality because life sucked and the rest of the advertising took care of itself.

It was probably for the best that the Duel Disk was set up to be a hit right out of the gate because our marketing department had something else to be focusing on.

The Head of Marketing in KaibaCorp USA was freaking out over this 'Dual Dimension System' Seto had invented and then pushed into production in under a week. Less than a decade ago Kaiba Corporation was a weapons manufacturer and the idea of having a KaibaCorp satellite hovering in space with rocket launching functionality was driving the American government crazy. The USA branch had been chasing big brother about it for days so I'd offered to pick them up from him so he could focus on other stuff. He'd delegated the job to me in a heartbeat. Helping Seto out was great, but jeez...

After a three hour long conference call I could see why he'd been ignoring them. They were really demanding. The American government was riding KC USA about what the space station was for and even the team in our Headquarters at Domino didn't fully know so the issue got escalated higher and higher up the chain until it was me dealing with it. I understood all the suspicion, but it bugged me that people couldn't see how far we'd come - how completely in the past the previous Kaiba Corporation was. I doubted they'd have believed the truth anyway, that it was basically a giant holographic projection suite Seto had dedicated to running duels against his state of the art solid vision version of the Pharaoh. Pegasus would buy that my brother was _that_ dedicated to the Duel Monsters card game, but I doubted any other American I'd spoken to today would.

Speaking of Pegasus...

I knew Seto had been to see him today. My big brother had barely bothered to try and hide it, but he'd barely bothered with much since the Pharaoh left for the afterlife. The two of them were business partners so it wasn't exactly strange that they met up, but I wondered why he felt the need to keep it so private. I was sort of glad though. Pegasus was creepy and Duelist Kingdom brought back nothing but bad memories. The guy had been buying up a lot of shares in KaibaCorp recently. I'd wondered if it was just to get my brother's attention, or for some other much worse reason. Seto didn't need anything else on his mind right now.

We hadn't seen much of each other the last few weeks between me being at the dig site in Egypt and him being up in space and then going through one of his manic-inventor phases to turn production of this pod of his around, so I was betting he probably hadn't eaten or slept in a while. He could forget about stuff like that when he went into preparation mode.

I loosened my tie and padded through the house to the kitchen.

The cook had left a sandwich in the fridge and I felt like I could eat it, and then another of it. Big brother said snacks after nine o'clock were bad for digestion, but I remember him eating like a horse when he was my age. And then acting really weird. And then barely eating anything at all.

I stared the sandwich down from its vantage point on the fridge's highest shelf.

Seto had hit his first growth spurt when he was just a little bit older than me. I could remember him terrorizing the kitchen staff for months and then one day, suddenly, he'd just sort of stopped eating at all. No matter the dish, he'd just pick at it for a few minutes and then push it away. Gozaburo and him must have been playing one of their 'games'. I didn't really realize that then though. I'd even tried to smuggle food to him once and he'd stood there pale and shaky, telling me firmly that he wasn't mad, but that I was never to do it again. He'd never really gone back to eating like a normal person, even after Gozaburo died. The older I got the more I wanted to ask him about our past - to try and put all these old memories into context. I don't think my big brother was really capable of talking about them though.

I left the sandwich on the shelf. I wasn't that hungry. I'd had my three square meals and some baked goods between meetings. I'd be fine. Instead it was time to see if I could get Seto to take a break from whatever it was he was doing.

I wondered where he was but lucky I never had trouble finding him.

A lot of people might have taken that for granted. He was taller than most other people and dressed in a way that magazines, tabloids and dumb people on the street called 'eccentric' but it wasn't an easy trick when you factored in just how many rooms the mansion had, how many offices there were in KaibaCorp, or just how easily my brother could jump in his jet and fly off to another country - Or when the pod was fully finished, potentially another dimension.

It was a cloudy night and the stinging smell of the chlorine mixed with the scent of the flowers from the mansion's adjacent garden as I found him swimming laps in the outdoor pool. At least he was taking a break, sorta. His new version of a break anyway.

There was no way to catch his attention while his grueling front crawl kept most of his head underwater so I shrugged. One of his laptops was open on the patio table. I wandered over to it while he kept swimming, the long limbs I looked forward to not quite measuring up to in a few years slicing through the water like a knife as he assaulted the pool as if it owed him an overdue expense report. The idea that I might grow-up to be that tall too made me grin, though of course I'd never want to be taller than my big brother. Seto had earned being taller than everyone else.

That smile turned into a frown as I recognized the UI of the program running on his laptop. It was the decryption software he'd run to translate the Egyptian symbols at the bottom of the Winged Dragon of Ra card back in Battle City. Great, more ancient Egyptian stuff. Now the program was working on a low-resolution photograph of some stone tablet. The translation so far read sort of like a spell from a movie, but mentioning that would just upset Seto.

Sometimes I wished he could just get over it and let 'Atem' be part of the past, but he couldn't.

Whatever. Instead of letting it get to me I rolled up the bottom of my pants and started dabbling my feet in the water, idly fiddling with the semi-submerged pool thermometer. All of this Egyptian stuff was going to be behind us by this time tomorrow. My big brother swam two more laps before he realized I was there and made his exit from the pool.

I grinned at him, leaping up to bounce into the deck chair next to the one he had left his towel on and ignored the chair's creaky protest at the treatment. Seto crossed the space with a more subdued pace; panting slightly from his laps while having to comb his bangs out of his eyes with his fingers. When dry they were just long enough to sit neatly above his eyes, but when weighed down by water they messily flopped over them. It was funny, but with his bangs temporarily swiped away there was no ignoring the deep ink-stained smudges beneath his eyes. They looked way worse now than a few days ago, much deeper and hollower with the harsh pool lights on his face. He really needed to sleep. I don't think he'd stopped moving for more than a few minutes since the Pharaoh had been and gone at the duel with Diva. I don't know why he felt so pressed for time. If the afterlife really was a place that you could get to then it wasn't like it was going to go anywhere if he took the night off.

There wasn't much point in saying any of that though.

Nothing on earth could distract Seto from a rematch with the Pharaoh. For being a full on certifiable genius, it was like there was this switch that made half his brain stop working when anything to do with Atem came up. Whenever this switch flicked on it was the bit that made the rational decisions that was the first casualty.

The stupid thing is, he'd actually been getting better, right up until the Pharaoh left anyway.

Once he stopped dueling and locked his deck away after Battle City things had gotten a lot less manic, but it hadn't lasted. One thing after another had dragged him back and messed with that internal switch and then after the Pharaoh 'died' it was like the controls had short circuited and the result was this crazy burst of energy that he threw into weird projects that made no sense, just like while he was building Death-T. Even I couldn't follow what he was thinking on some days and sometimes I think neither could he.

I watched him for a moment as he rolled his left shoulder and then took the towel from the sun lounger next to me. He was pushing himself again. Over-exercising had become another problem over the last few months but luckily my brother viewed his body like a high performance piece of machinery; something to be pushed to its limit but also entitled to proper maintenance before it gave out completely. Right now it looked like it needed a break.

"Good swim?" I chirped, grinning forcefully as he had to flick his bangs out of his eyes a second time and scowled slightly as they slapped back into their original position.

He grunted as he applied the towel to his hair. "The water temperature's off by point five of a degree, and the chlorine levels are a mess."

Yeah, they weren't. Well, I couldn't speak to the chlorine levels, but according to the thermometer the temperature was definitely right. The pool was fine. Suggesting to Seto that he might just be feeling a little more thin-skinned than usual wouldn't have gone down well.

"Well it's nice out." I continued breezily, pointing upward at the sky. Overcast probably wasn't most people's idea of 'nice out' but some of my best memories as a little kid were made on nights just like this. "Let's cloud gaze for a bit."

Seto didn't like to be bossed around. Tone was very important and though I had stated it enthusiastically enough to be a suggestion, it lacked the upwards inflection of a request. I'd been very careful. Seto finished toweling his hair to glance at me, assessing me with a slight smirk before slowly swinging his legs around to sit on the sun lounger next to mine.

Maybe it was just because I was getting older, but ever since I cut my hair Seto seemed to assess me more carefully when I offered a contrary opinion to his own. It didn't happen a lot; my big brother was a genius after all, but sometimes he missed really simple things... Like that maybe the idea of building a pod to shoot himself into heaven in wasn't a great idea... Sometimes my play didn't pay off and he'd curb stomp my opinion into the ground, but other times when phrased it the right way and asked at the right moment big brother would pause and really look at me and then do what I wanted with a smirk.

It was encouraging. It felt like winning. "You can go first." I offered, keeping my tone upbeat so Seto wouldn't realize what I was up to. Simple low-tech games like these didn't really keep my brother's attention anymore, but they did do one thing.

"Fine." Seto agreed, his voice sounding a little gruff. "Only one round." He leaned all the way back in his lounger to lie flat and stared upwards, silently watching the clouds pass over his head and waiting for a good candidate.

Even though the breeze was cool the night was warm for this time of year and I felt a smugness in the execution of my strategy. After only a minute of lounging beneath the sky waiting for the perfect cloud to float by I could hear Seto's breathing even out into sleep. I surveyed the clouds with an air of victory, trying to pick out all the animals I could have played while making sure to quiet my own movements and breathing as much as possible. Seto was an impossibly light sleeper but he'd need a full nights rest if he was serious about launching the Dual Dimension System tomorrow.

In the corner of my eye I saw him shiver slightly as the wind swam another one of its own laps around the pool; probably more chilling to someone still drying off. The decision to wake him or not resolved itself as an alarm on Seto's phone drove the device to vibrate like crazy across the side table on the other side of my brother's lounger. Seto thrashed himself upright like he'd been tazed, his back ramrod straight in an instant and simultaneously smashed his fist against the phone's snooze button. The startled look in his eyes evaporated as though it had never been there. "I'm sorry, Mokuba-" He glanced over to me as he finished unlocking the device to turn off his swimming alarm. "-I have more pre-launch checks to run."

I frowned slightly, then schooled the expression off of my face and nodded. "Sure thing, big brother."

He gathered up his devices and went inside, leaving me beside the pool with his wet towel and the real hope that once Seto got back from the Pharaoh's dimension things would finally get back to normal.


	2. Chapter 2

**Atem**

Yugi had looked strong as he faced Diva. Some time had passed since my departure and he wore his new maturity well. Finally the strength I'd always known his heart to hold was reflected to the whole world.

I'd almost not needed to intercede at all; he'd almost conquered Diva without my help, but his mind had searched for mine as he'd lingered on the edge of defeat and I could never deny our bond, nor would I ignore a plea for help from a dear friend. He had consented to let me be privy to his most recent memories as our minds brushed against each other, once more becoming his partner if only for a moment, and for the last time.

Even while using his body as a host my link to the living world had been as thin as a thread. Speech proved beyond my power. I summoned Mahad to my side in silence and was pleased that Yugi had needed no words between us to know my mind in the aftermath. I wished I could tell him of all I was seeing and experiencing here in my afterlife but perhaps it was best that I had not. In its own way, that single silent moment of wordless reunion had been perfect.

I couldn't have wished for more.

Yugi. Joey, T _é_ a, Tristen - all of the friends left behind; I would miss them, always, but finally everything was as fate intended. I had achieved my destiny. Though I felt their absences keenly I was now surrounded by a world of new gains with each day spent among my loved ones and forgotten memories. It was a feeling of belonging that I'd never thought possible for me while I was still the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle.

The young horse I rode snorted opportunistically and I placed these thoughts upon a high mantle in my mind to revisit another time. I chuckled at his predictable outburst as he sought to use my moment of distraction to unseat me and bucked, tossing his head before breaking into a wild canter, the warmth of the horse's back working beneath me as his strong body flexed against mine with each pressing step. None of the other horses in the royal stables compare to the unbridled exhilaration and speed of the flighty, half-broken stallion and the Millennium Puzzle bounced against my body as I leaned into his strides and rode across my lands.

To have its weight back around my neck was welcome. I found myself smirking as the reeds and fields rushed passed. I should have known it would prove too tempting for Kaiba to leave alone. Removing it from the mortal world was best. In this world a month had passed without incident since the encounter and though seeing the Puzzle again had earned the wariness of my priests it had settled as they came to understand it was inert - now little more than a symbol of a time far behind us all.

I turned that thought over in my head like a card and I nudged my heels more insistently into the sides of my horse. The rebellious beast complied eagerly, whinnying in enthusiasm and lengthening his gait from a canter to a gallop. The wind hurried to greet me; tugging at my earrings, tossing my cloak and rushing to push away the lighter stray thoughts and leave only the strongest and heaviest behind to be conquered.

It was as it was meant to be. How it had always been fated to be. An ancient Egyptian king didn't belong in their world.

My horse's hooves rushed across the lush lands beyond my palace, crushing countless reeds beneath us as we rode through a golden field toward the dawning sun rising above the horizon. I felt myself smirk into the wind as the stallion charged faster as though willing himself to take flight.

Between me, the stallion and the golden sands and reed fields of the Egyptian afterlife I could think freely, reflect wholly and appreciate with fondness those who I wouldn't see again. I wondered how they were doing, the sorts of people they would become and then redoubled my focus on the beast beneath me as the stallion decided a shin-high log required a knee-high leap and added unexpected height to his jump. I leaned forward with him and then back as he landed. When I had first awoken in Yugi's body I had been missing so many memories and yet somehow the motions of mounting a horse, riding with its strides and leaning into its jumps had come back to me as though it was second nature. That was a blessing.

With a nudge of my heel and a tug of the reigns in my hand I encouraged him to arc backwards toward the palace. The wind in my ears had helped me order my thoughts once more and it was time to return. The horse tossed his mane as we turned for home, putting on a burst of speed as he gained a second wind. I laughed at his spirit as he thundered across the last stretches of the field of reeds toward the desert beyond.

The slicing of sand beneath his hooves became the clattering of stone as we raced beyond the surrounding town and into the palace courtyard toward the royal stable. The horse no doubt had his mind set on his morning meal and at the speed he traveled toward his goal I could do nothing but enjoy his feckless determination to reach his goal.

But his speed of course comes with risks as well as merits.

The stallion discovered this a moment too late as he rounded a corner and spooked at the aggravated hiss of a newly awakened cobra. He veered unexpectedly to the side and threw me from his back. The horse jumped and bucked while in mid-air, bolting onward and away from the irritated serpent as I lay tossed in the sand, eye to eye with the cobra.

The cobra slithered a little closer to me as I slowly attempted to rise from my prone position, evidently angry from being nearly trampled to death. As it rose up and prepared to strike I rolled away, my body - and it was my body - was fit and easily able to swiftly leap to its feet as I pushed off from the ground with my arms.

The serpent hissed threateningly at me, recognizing its disadvantage now I was standing and I readied my hand to grasp its neck and throw it... Before its head was abruptly crushed by a large rock and a squealing sound.

My eyebrows rose in surprise and my focus extended beyond my serpentine attacker to behold Mana, sweaty, panting and slightly disheveled from strain depositing such a large uniformly cut slab of stone on the cobra.

It was a creative solution, that was certain.

"Good morning, Pharaoh!" She greeted with a bright smile and wide gesture of her arms.

"Where did the stone come from?" I asked somewhat incredulously, amusement seeping into my voice.

Mana huffed and puffed, pointing a finger toward the stable block and grinned "Priest Shimon uses it as a leg up to help him get into the saddle."

I nodded; much like Solomon Muto, Priest Shimon's easy company was a gift. Though, where the man had ample conviviality he did indeed lack the height needed to mount most of the palace horses without a step up.

"I see." I brushed out the sand that had worked its way into the folds of my clothes and nooks of my jewelry with ease. I was pleased that I had taken no damage to my body from the fall. "And what brings you to the stable this early?"

Mana giggled, apparently not bothering with anything other than the absolute truth. She stuck her tongue out a little before replying " _He_ said that horse would throw you."

Brushing the last of the sand from my arms I looked up, glancing around for any sight of the stallion.

Mahad had indeed cautioned me against taking the horse out until he was fully broken, but the stable hands didn't seem to be any nearer achieving that than they were several weeks ago and I had come to respect the beast's rebelliousness even while suspecting there was another explanation for the delay.

In jest Seto and I had made a wager over how long it would take to break the stallion and it was a possibility that the High Priest had set to work on dissuading the horse trainers from their duties to skew the result in his favor. This Seto didn't quite have Kaiba's deep reservoir of anger to draw from which made him easier to gamble with, in fact he seemed rather partial to games of chance. It had been an ill-fitting rediscovery to make as his namesake in the living world had been so vehemently opposed to them. Kaiba's face as he tried and failed to guess which of Magical Hats hid my monsters and bulldozed his way to victory sprang to my mind unbidden and nudged my lips into a grin.

"Mana." Mahad chided in a gentle tone, no doubt displeased with Mana's gumption. I laughed as the man who had served me so loyally as my Dark Magician stepped out into a stable yard from the attached chamber, possibly having watched for some time.

"Please retrieve the Pharaoh's horse." He requested, turning to me as Mana responded with an enthusiastic "Right away!" and jogged off down the stable yard in the direction the stallion had fled. "I was concerned for your safety."

I turned my grin on him and held up a hand to silence any further words, needing no explanation for his council. It was always welcome.

"There are much more obedient horses with better breeding that are just as fast to choose from in the royal stable." He observed, his expression and tone both curious and neutral.

I paused, considering Mahad's unspoken question and watching in the distance as Mana tugged expectantly on the reigns of the lithe stallion to urge him to walk with her, only for the horse to pull abruptly backwards and attempt to trot off in the opposite direction in protest. I chuckled at his antics, unable to articulate why this horse in particular had taken my eye.

I settled for the only answer I could give. "Riding him feels like flying. Though-" I turned to Mahad slowly and admitted "-I don't recall owning a horse like this in my lifetime." This had been on my mind since discovering the stallion's sudden appearance in the royal stables. A Pharaoh is a living god, and cannot be shown to have fallacies but I wondered if there were still gaps in my memory.

Mahad's expression became pensive, gazing out at the horse across the courtyard as the stallion attempted to tug the reigns out of Mana's hands by thrashing his head around. "Nor do I." He agreed. I frowned and allowed the subject to drop away.

The teachings of my priests told me that my afterlife was a direct reflection of the life I had lived, but made better than reality by the grace of the gods. My deceased loved ones and friends were here just as I recalled them, the weather was nothing less than ideal and the lands I ruled over were Egypt, but lusher and teeming with game and fish beyond what I'd known while alive.

It was a true paradise, but the reflection was imperfect. It seemed the gods had taken some liberties beyond making the fields more fertile and animals more plentiful...

I was reunited with the dead whom I cherished, but despite beckoning me through the doorway into the afterlife my Father and Uncle were not among them, leaving me to assume the role of Pharaoh once again. Certain people and places had been omitted and others- like the stallion- added.

Yugi had a saying oddly close to this, about not looking gift horses in the mouth.

I whistled and two ears flicked forward as the stallion ceased playing tug of war over the reigns with Mana and turned his head to me, slowly walking in my direction until he was close enough for me to thoughtfully pat his sweaty neck. Mana pouted at my easy command of the horse and trotted back over to join us.

"Have you decided on a name for him yet?" She asked, joining me at the horse's side as I began to manoeuvre the bridle over his ears and away from his face. He wouldn't accept a saddle and was defiant in accepting a bridle from anyone other than me and I didn't assume his favouritism would continue if I left him in it for longer than absolutely necessary but Mana's question made me pause as I passed the leather straps over his brow.

"No." I replied simply. Too simply to escape Mahad's notice. He subtly turned to me, curious about the half-truth.

"Aww, poor horse." Mana chirped, patting his wither as if to console the stallion even as his ears angrily slicked backward to show how little he appreciated the petting.

In fact I had thought of a name for him; or rather the combination of his ill-temper, dark chestnut colouring and the large white patch that ran the length of his back as though he was wearing a long coat had made the name occur to me through resemblance but it felt inappropriate to name a horse after Kaiba, even if the actual duelist would never know.

"I'll think of one soon." I added, if only to assure Mana that the stallion didn't need any more of her affection before the beast's patience could run out. Lifting the bridle free of his head I stroked one hand down the length of his muzzle and stepped away to stand beside Mahad. With a cheerful grin Mana accepted my word and did the same, the three of us elapsing into a warm silence as we admired the sun rise together as though we had never been apart. It was as if there was never a time that admiring the morning sky like this had been impossible and the airless darkness of the Millennium Puzzle had been all but a distant dream. The memory of it made the hair at the nape of my neck stand on end so I readily dismissed it to focus on warmer thoughts. Though I had been thrown, it had been an enjoyable ride to start a warm day and I noted that the last of the pale pinks and oranges staining the dawn sky had started to give way to a cloudless blue morning.

With a nod to Mahad and Mana I turned to leave them, ready to head in towards my chambers. The stable hands would see to it that the stallion was given a bath and I would do the same. If I wanted to join my priests for the morning meal or prayers I wouldn't attend smelling of horse.

**Kaiba**

For 'heaven' the scenery was totally uninspired.

Sand dunes and a massive red rock mountain range behind the palace were the only features to note. I already knew from a cursory glance at early maps of the Egyptian region dredged up during my research that while this place looked Egypt-like the geography was inaccurate. The Nile was too close; the mountains were too substantial, they veered off in the wrong direction and peering far to the east and west were either completely out of place oases and fields or I was already starting to see mirages. Everything was conveniently located in a way that wasn't true of the real life Egyptian landscape. All of the minutia was wrong and to make it worse it was idealized, yet somehow still boring.

Whatever. I had a duel to win. I pressed the button to release the hood of the cockpit and nothing happened. The pod jammed. Just great.

I jabbed the button to release the canopy again and listened closely, trying to diagnose the problem by sound alone. The pod made a dull grinding noise and I could hear the hydraulics strain in an attempt to release the seal but then sputter to a stop. Not mechanical failure then. Most likely all the sand.

The desert sneered back at me from beyond the tinted windows of the pod, like it was taunting me.

Something that granular could easily compromise the mechanisms and it was possible the wind could have tossed enough in through the exhaust vents if the pod had been sat here in this crap for too long. To make things worse I must have blacked out between dimensions, but had no way of telling how long I'd been unconscious here. The onboard time and date data was fucked; blinking back at me with a consistent '00:00' for the whole time since I'd woken up in the cockpit.

"Tch." And my shoulders and arms were dissolving.

The pod wasn't. Organic matter only, perhaps? Maybe you had to be alive to be a candidate for being forcefully kicked out of a dimension for the dead. But my clothes were dissolving with my body? I hated contradictory rules.

The particulate flying off of me seemed to do so at a steady speed but I'd have to keep an eye on it in case the decay rate accelerated over time. I had no intention of dueling the Pharaoh into the ground -watching him have to come to terms with his own final defeat as my Blue-Eyes bared down on him- only to evaporate into a cloud of particles at the last minute. I had a moronic back-up plan courtesy of Pegasus, but using it would taint any victory that came after. I wasn't gonna resort to relying on something so pitifully desperate unless there was no choice and every second I wasted here stuck in my pod was duel time down the drain.

I lifted my legs to angle them over the dashboard to place both my feet on the dark grey frame securing the hood in place. As I punched the release button again I pushed with my legs against the frame with everything I had, adding my own strength to the failing hydraulics. It was a low-tech solution but effective, that additional brute force was all it took. With a shudder the canopy hissed and the pressure lock released, grinding its gears a little as the hood opened. It moved upwards and then retracted back towards the rear of the pod to lie almost flat against the rest of the vessel, just like I'd designed. The fact that it had jammed in the first place pissed me off, but prototypes were always buggy and it's not liked I'd had time to do proper testing. I was lucky just to be alive – if that even counted since I was now in the Egyptian 'afterlife'.

Such nonsense.

I swiped the spare Duel Disk from the front cargo compartment and disembarked by throwing myself over the side of the pod. It was a stodgy shape. I could improve the design if I ended up caring about it anymore after today but I wasn't intending to. The Dual Dimension System was a one way ride and it had served my purpose. Now it was just scrap metal waiting for some ancient Egyptian yokel to stumble on it and start worshiping it as god, or something equally as ridiculous knowing how backwards the Egyptian pantheon was. In the meantime the best I could do was seal it up to the elements.

There was a sheet of ultra light heat-reflective tarpaulin in the rear storage compartment for use in the event of a failure to close the canopy. It snapped into place around the open hatch of the pod quickly, which was good since one look at the particles flying away from my arms confirmed that I didn't have the time to waste. At the very least it would keep the sand out of the cockpit and prevent the instruments from denaturing in this temperature. Even though the pod was now just an expensive pile of garbage you never knew when something might come in handy, and if the tablet's trick to get out of the afterlife failed I'd have to fall back on my own ingenuity which meant making sure it didn't melt in the meantime.

I scowled and squinted across the sand dunes as the last popper on the sheet snapped into place. The sun here was oppressive, like it had a physical weight to it. So far out into the desert there was nothing but dry heat without a lick of wind. The sweat on my forehead dried almost as soon as it had formed which was convenient for appearances sake but could dehydrate a human body to illness or death with ease. This was a horrible place to have an afterlife in and everything was working against me here. Every environmental factor that could impede me was raring to do so and so much time had been wasted already.

Fortunately, finding the Pharaoh wasn't going to be an issue. If the solitary ancient Egyptian palace looming on the horizon wasn't enough of a clue on its own, the heat haze reflected a second instance of it into the sky above making its presence unignorable in every direction. Just like him. That figured.

The desert sand crunched beneath my boots and I remembered so much why I couldn't stand this sort of terrain. With every step it tried to swallow my foot. It was almost impossible to look imposing when wading through so much crap. Waking faster would only exacerbated the issue, so I kept my default calm and steady pace, the one I used so that Mokuba never had trouble keeping up.

He'd seemed so worried in the moments before the launch. Not quite doubtful, or hysterical, but deeply concerned. Across the space station's monitor his eyes had taken on that bright, glassy quality they did when he was trying not to start crying. He was getting older now and it wasn't something I saw as often as I used to. Soon this would be over, and he'd never have to look at me like that again. Never have to worry over me. He was the younger brother - that wasn't his job. I'd probably have to plan something for us to do when I got back to smooth over his nerves. I'd apply myself to that after this duel was done. After my business with _him_ was finally finished.

I neared the outskirts of what might be called the 'city' surrounding the palace, if I was feeling generous. Who imagines a paradise with an equally grand palace only to surrounded it with a backwater village filled with sun-baked houses and sweaty villagers?

The civilians stopped in the street as I passed them. The merchants yelling at the top of their lungs about their fruit and dates from beneath tatty, tent-like storefronts all fell deathly silent as soon as they saw me. That made me smirk. I was obviously out of place - in fact I couldn't possibly have looked more far removed from the bland linens and sandals that made up the going fashion trend here. Despite reducing the populous of the street to a state of self-imposed petrifaction, no one made a move to stop me. Several even scrambled to get the hell out my way. Smart.

The palace threshold was a totally different matter.

Two statues of seated pharaohs gazed impassively out at their subjects, flanked by two obelisks covered from base to tip in hieroglyphs. Neither of the statues resembled the one I'd come here to duel, so I guess he hadn't gotten bored enough to start plastering his face on everything yet. What else was there to do in ancient Egypt beside giving every rock, wall and statue a face-lift to resemble you the moment you came to power?

The square archway towered above the city's tallest buildings with rows and rows of horses and chariot races painted up its length in ruddy reds and greens. A winged sun disk motif crowned the archway itself and four beams of wood as tall as the obelisks themselves flew an assortment of multi-colored flags. It wasn't my aesthetic - in fact I found it repellent - but I couldn't say that it wasn't imposing. That in itself was worthy of acknowledgement. Much like Kaiba Manor.

More pressing was the ten guards neatly lined up into two rows of five with spears in their hands that stood either side of the entryway. I kept my stride even and slow as I approached the first pair in the line and didn't bother to make eye-contact. I paused when the two lowered their spears in front of me, creating an 'X' with their weapons to bar my entry.

I hadn't come all this way just to be turned away at the door by the hired help. I made sure my expression told them that without words. Under my glare a current of recognition ran through the eyes of the first guard, which was completely impossible since I'd never been here before but useful if it got me inside quicker. A few of the guards looked at each other in confusion, another two further down the line-up turning slightly to mutter to each other. One of the pair holding their spears in front of me eyed me closely. He tensed and relaxed the muscles in his arm, as though unable to decide to keep me at bay or not.

My patience had evaporated with what felt like at least sixty percent of my bodily fluids so I removed the difficult decision from his purview by grabbing his spear and yanking it aside to let me pass. Deciding that whatever I was was something they shouldn't be poking holes in, the second spear retracted quickly and the guards stood by stupefied as I walked passed them into the palace grounds. I'd have to mock the Pharaoh for his terrible security.

Beyond the archway was a courtyard of sorts surrounded by a red stone walkway lined with white columns and on the other side of it a stone staircase to what architecturally-speaking should be the throne room. A servant girl carrying a pitcher of water dropped the thing in surprise and a second one that looked somewhat familiar but was wearing a higher percentage of golden jewelry jumped at the sight of me and clambered into a nearby waist-high basket. For a people who believed themselves to be so close to their gods, they sure acted like a bunch of cowards. I also couldn't place why she looked familiar. That was irritating.

I turned away from the basket to ascend the stair case only to find another obstacle had placed himself between me and my duel. He also looked familiar and that enraged me. These people had no reason to look familiar to me and the fact that they did was damn well insulting. In the case of the man now blocking me from the staircase, it was something in his face. Something I'd seen before that angered me.

"You should not be here." He lectured dully, as though he knew anything about me. He was a non-entity. Not even worth the time it would take to ream him out.

"Get out of my way." I pushed him to side with ease and ascended the stairs. He caught his footing and just stood there, watching after me. Lucky for him. If he'd actually tried to get in my way I might have had to get serious.

There was no force on earth or beyond that would keep me from this.


	3. Chapter 3

**Atem**

I'd come to discover that my High Priest was prone to wandering the grounds in the afternoon.

His restlessness gave us the chance to speak at length out of the ear-shot of the rest of the priesthood and I'd taken to joining him on occasion for his view on current events. While in the presence of the other priests his opinions would be forceful, but tempered. When the two of us walked in privacy I had found I could order him to speak his mind without restraint.

He'd seemed surprised and cautious at this the first time, thinking it was a trick. Despite being my High Priest during life I hadn't actively sought out his council in the same way I had that of others, maybe it was because despite his high rank Seto was only my age, or younger, if I recalled correctly. "A young Pharaoh is best served by a young High Priest." Aknadin had once reasoned, but if his recommendation for Seto's future appointment had come before or after learning he was also his son I didn't know.

It didn't matter. Now that I could recall so much more about the men and women who surrounded me it was Seto in particular who was made more fascinating in the afterlife than I had found him while we both lived. Kaiba had been a valuable opponent and without his rivalry I could never have become a strong enough duelist to reach my destiny. Understanding Seto, contrasting him against his living reincarnation, it gave a new context to old memories. He was so like Kaiba and so different at the same time. Their approach to managing personal relationships seem to matched up though.

Most recently a week of festivities and reverence to celebrate the bounty of Osiris, Foremost of the Westerners, Lord of Love, King of the Living and He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful, apparently had Seto at odds with Isis.

He explained that he found Isis's preparations lackluster and uninspired. As he described it this was a matter of great importance, especially considering we were to be worshiping the god of the dead, afterlife and underworld. As king of this realm and judge of the afterlife I understood Seto's concern with pleasing Osiris, though doubted Isis's plans were as 'insipid' as he would lead me to believe.

After placating him with the assurance I would personally review Isis's proposed offerings we moved on to speak about trivial things. He had smirked as I told him about being thrown by the stallion earlier that morning as we exited the garden toward the throne room for afternoon hearings.

I settled into the throne as had become customary at the end of our strolls and Seto bowed low and knelt on the floor in front of me, speaking at length to bid me a restorative afternoon. Spoken in the voice that both he and Kaiba shared the platitudes were made both normal and surreal at the same time.

I nodded once to Seto, a silent gesture dismissing him to attend to his other duties. In a fluid, well-practiced motion the priest stood to leave before frowning and turning backward to look at something I couldn't see. I leaned over from my throne to spot what he was sensing.

The breeze was cool and sunlight filtered through the obelisks to streak across smooth stones of my palace. The scent of incense lingered in the air and the crackle of the braziers set about the walkways made for an environment that satisfied my every sense. It was only then that I heard the calm tones of Mahad faintly from somewhere in the outer cloister, a note of warning in his words.

"You should not be here."

The sound of a dull thump, followed by a pair of rapid and unsteady footsteps catching themselves gave me little doubt somehow that Mahad had just been shoved off balance by whatever it was that was daring to impose upon my afterlife.

I felt my every sense sharpen, felt my ire well and then empty again as quickly as it had come. A gruff and familiar "Get out of my way." spoken beyond my sight momentarily stole my every other thought. The voice was unmistakable. I glanced to the priest who had been supplicating himself before me mere moments ago. Despite being the only one here capable of making such a tone my High Priest looked just as perplexed as I was. I shouldn't have bothered. I could already conclude who it was that approached.

Echoing around the room before their source could be seen, the impending footsteps were of a person not wearing the sandals I had come to call familiar, but the heavy boots of the modern world. Though I couldn't explain his presence here I prepared myself to face Seto Kaiba once more, a flare of excitement sparking even as a trepidatious curiosity fought to sully the sensation. I'd removed the Millennium Puzzle from the living world, so how could he be here? Did it matter? No, I decided. Methodology aside I should have known that placing another barrier between Kaiba and myself would be only a new limit to overcome in his eyes.

I smiled unbidden, then schooled my expression into pure confidence and leaned well back into my throne to make myself the picture of comfort. With a wave of my hand the servants at the corners of the room stepped forward with long hooks to pull aside the drapery hanging over the opening behind my throne. The curtains that shielded the throne room from the mid day sun parted, letting it spill into the room with a blinding intensity. Holographic coliseums, lasers, dry ice machines, air ships. Too many times I had Yugi and I been subjected to Kaiba's theatrics when dueling in places of his choosing. It was time to repay that favor.

With another nod to my priest Seto complied with my unspoken command and stood off to the side of the grand antechamber. Even as he retreated into the half-light at the shadowy edges of the chamber I could see his eyes glaring toward the entrance way for a first look at whatever was about to approach the throne so brazenly. They turned blank in confusion as they met their target.

The unmistakable outline of Seto Kaiba climbed the last of the stairs to my palace. He looked unearthly and had somehow managed to make himself appear even more eccentric than I remembered. Glowing blue lines of energy traced the features of his body and mechanical apparatus clung to his skull and costume like something out of Yugi's video games. Seto's soul had been spared the trauma of being transformed into a Duel Monster but it appeared Kaiba was seeking to correct that oversight in his own lifetime. The white coat I had idly guessed I would never lay eyes upon again flared behind him at its usual impossible angles, reflecting and amplifying the sun in its glossy fabric. It created a halo of light that trailed off of the sharp corners of his silhouette and then dulled as Kaiba crossed the threshold into the chamber proper.

Mahad followed slowly behind and discreetly made his way around the rear of the room. His expression in my peripheral vision was both stern and pensive but my sight didn't waver our 'guest' for the length of his approach.

Kaiba's gaze was leveled at me with all the intensity I remembered even as his eyes slightly narrowed as they strained against being blinded by the sunlight. I felt the fine hairs on my arms rise in anticipation and rose from my throne to greet the duelist who would always hold the title of my rival.

Without words he thrust out his Duel Disk; or I what I guessed was a Duel Disk. It looked more like armor and seemed to now climb all the way up his arm to his shoulder, but the motion with which Kaiba brandished it was the same.

I felt my smirk return. I had no shortage of questions to ask now that Kaiba was somehow here before me, in my afterlife. They could each wait. It seemed as though we had waited years for a chance to speak this privately. I didn't know what to say, but I wouldn't waste this chance.

"Kaib-".

"-Shut up." I was abruptly interrupted with an audaciousness that only Kaiba seemed to possess. He set my temper on edge in two words and the familiar aggravation that accompanied dealings with the taller duelist swept over me.

"And duel me, Pharaoh." He bit out a fraction of a heartbeat later. His eyes narrowed even further into thin slits as his glower grew harder and I felt my temper prickle warmly at his unfettered rudeness.

"Of course." I replied, blinking slowly at him. His face may be leaner and his body fitter, but this was still Kaiba after all. "I expected nothing less" I assured him.

Kaiba's brilliance in coming here was eclipsed only by his single-mindedness. I hadn't expected him to make his way here to me under any circumstance, but in reflection perhaps I should of. Perhaps this had been inevitable.

In my brief time connected to Yugi's thoughts I had seen his memories of that day, or at least those Yugi deemed most vital to my understanding of the situation. Through his eyes and ears I had learned of Diva, the specifics of 'Dimension summoning' and had seen in stark detail the moment in which Kaiba's expression fell as his lithe fingers slotted the final pieces of the Millennium Puzzle back together to great anticlimax. The way his teeth gritted, his pupils shrank and for a second he had looked so pained was etched into my partner's recollection. Yugi's thoughts had lingered on that moment and pushed it to the forefront of his mind for my perusal in the seconds we had been connected. I'd wondered why. Now I understood. Wise as ever, Yugi had been attempting to show me without words the intensity with which Kaiba hungered for a resolution to our battle so I would not deny him it. I closed my eyes and took a breath before opening them once more. It was time to finish this.

"I accept your challenge, Kaiba."

"Good" Kaiba replied, sounding unusually bored and disinterested. His breath hitched strangely for a moment. "And this time I'm not letting you go until I've had my revenge. That's a promise, Pharaoh. No matter what it takes I'll defeat you once and for all!" There it was. His tone heated rapidly as he finished that declaration. The sentiment was nothing new but there was a weight to his words and a forbidding heaviness in his eyes that was odd. Nevertheless, grim determination aside it seemed it would be the slow evaporation of Kaiba's own body that would be the limiting factor of our duel this time.

"Hnh." I chuckled, not bothering to keep my confidence hidden. "You may try." He didn't return the smirk I leveled at him. Sometimes he did; sometimes my appreciation of his fighting spirit was enough to coax out his own amusement in return. It seemed this was not one of those times. Despite his victory in making it here to the afterlife he eyed me stoically without a hint of smugness or anticipation, utterly joyless. That stung. I would have liked us to part forever on warmer terms than this.

"Remember this Pharaoh; we aren't done until I say so." He stated, so blandly it was difficult to reconcile the words with Kaiba's usual trash talk. "My scars might last forever-" he continued, the volume of his voice dropping to a low growl that promised both challenge and danger "-but they'll be nothing in comparison once I rip you apart!" He roared, every bit as ferocious as the dragons in his deck.

From the periphery of the room, I heard Seto scoff.

Kaiba released me from his glare for the first moment since he had entered the antechamber and warily scanned the room for the source of the noise.

I didn't bother to do the same. I already knew where the priest was. Seto stood shadowed and aloof in a corner where the light from sun and that of the braziers failed to intersect, creating a cloak of darkness to peer from and disappear into. The taller priest used that spot when he wanted to observe proceedings in the throne room while going largely forgotten. This time Mahad also stood with him. I approved of the strategic positioning, granting the illusion of privacy while apparently deeming our intruder too outlandish in appearance to be left alone with me.

The moment Kaiba noticed them was obvious. He stiffened as he picked out Seto even in the shadows of the room by the anger that flashed through the priest's eyes, making them gleam in the fire light.

Kaiba's glare was solid and impassible; sizing Seto up in a long pause before sneering and turning back to me. "Good likeness." Kaiba commented casually. "Off-brand though." He continued, as if appraising the quality of a newly summoned hologram. "You should get your head checked if you think there's anyone who can replaced me."

Seto took a step forward out of the shade, his jaw set in the picture of rage. "You dare to threaten the Pharaoh? Threaten a living god?" he hissed, raw contempt for his modern incarnate radiating through every line of his body. He bowed before me, lowering his head in contrition. "Forgive me Pharaoh. His manner shames the both of us."

I wonder if Seto had been previously aware of Kaiba's existence, or was just able to summarize that the man that looked so much like him must in some way be a part of him.

Kaiba's tempestuousness crashed against the fixed and stalwart anger of my priest as he barked with mocking laughter one moment and then scowled viciously at the nearly identical looking man the next. "Some 'god'."

Briefly he glanced from his look-a-like to the strange black ash that seemed to be rising from his own body. "I don't have time for this". With a whirl of fabric from the tail of his coat he showed his back to Seto to glare into my face again. He had apparently decided that everyone else in the room was unimportant enough to ignore.

"Nice knock-off, but there is only one Seto Kaiba." Kaiba announced, as though I needed to be reminded. "And this world's not big enough for the both of us." He glowered back over his shoulder to Seto with finality.

"And how did you come to be here, Kaiba?" I asked, slowly descending the stairs from my throne to stand level with him and letting the breeze toy with the cape at my shoulders as I did so. Why he was here was obvious as a set of ethereal blue holographic cards lingered in the air above his duel disk, but how he was here was another matter.

"It doesn't matter. I won't be here long." He replied quickly, glaring pointedly at the dark specs of dust that seemed to be flying away from his arms and shoulders.

I nodded in understanding.

However he'd managed it, Kaiba had come a very long way for this audience and from the rate at which his body seemed to be vanishing there was little time for what he had in mind. "Leave us." I commanded the room at large.

The guards and servants complied in unison, creating a small and silent procession as they left the room. Mahad met my gaze over the chamber with a cautious, questioning look. Seto was seething beside him angrily, his eyes fixated on Kaiba as though willing the duelist to burst into flames. I smiled to Mahad, reassuringly. He took a moment and belatedly began to leave the room while giving Seto a push on the shoulder to get him moving as well. Seto scowled at the contact, the nudge breaking his concentration and forcibly disrupting his attempt to stare Kaiba into pieces. He shot an irritated look at Mahad and trailed behind him until he was stopped in his tracks by a new round of Kaiba's dark, mocking laughter.

"And you're just going to do as he says, like a little lap dog?" Kaiba sneered at Seto, then threw his head back and laughed at him again. I had thought Kaiba had just declared himself to be too pressed for time to start picking fights, but he never could seem to help himself. "You may look like me, but we are nothing alike." He taunted.

"Kaiba." I warned with a single sharp word.

Seto rose to Kaiba's bait without hesitation. Of course Kaiba would know exactly the quickest and most effective way to anger himself.

"You fool! I am your progenitor. The original. The true expression of your very soul. It is you who is a poor imitation of me." Seto spat back with venom.

Watching someone argue with themselves this way was absurd, though here with both of them in the same room I was beginning to see more differences than similarities.

It was difficult to tell with the two at a distance, but Kaiba had grown into a slightly larger man than Seto. He seemed a fraction taller than the priest, his face was subtly gaunter and more mature. His shoulders were a little wider and torso built with clearly defined muscle, yet still just as thin as ever. They still had the same eyes, somehow. Both cold and searing and calm and chaotic at the time time, though Kaiba's Japanese blood made his eye shape a fraction more almond-shaped and Kaiba was now clearly a little older than Seto.

That thought gave me pause, though I wasn't sure why. Of course Kaiba would be older, just as Yugi had been. Time was passing in the living world. Kaiba was about to enter the prime of his life, while here in my afterlife Seto would forever be the age I last remembered him. That realization was disquieting, but I couldn't place why.

"I'm the imitation, huh?" Kaiba surprised me with a follow-up question, either hiding true curiosity behind aggression, or probing for weakness in the other Seto's defenses. "Then why are you here, looking like that?" Kaiba waved his arm at him dismissively. "Your precious Pharaoh may have died when he was sixteen, but according to Ishizu you went on to live a full life as the next Pharaoh."

Seto opened his mouth to shout back and then closed it again, his expression turning thoughtful. Neither of my priests had a reply to give. It seemed Kaiba had armed himself with more than just his new Duel Disk. Kaiba smirked unpleasantly at their silence, a familiar expression he wore when deciding he had won and in doing so transmuted Seto into something beneath his notice.

"Now didn't your 'god' just give you an order?" Kaiba mocked the priest. "Get out, and thanks for the face." He added sarcastically. Picking his moment Mahad attempted to move Seto again, gently nudging his shoulder. Seto turned to shove him away and stalked off out of the room with the other priest following closely behind.

I was unimpressed with Kaiba and his petulance, "Did you really break your way into my afterlife just to insult those closest to me?" Time had clearly passed, yet he was still in the habit of picking fights with everything in the room that would give him one.

"No, that was pro bono." He smirked for the first time since entering my sight and then frowned, looking at me intently. He studied me as I had him moments ago. I wonder if he even noticed that he was switching between tongues; baiting Seto with the language of this world before swapping back to his native Japanese between sentences. I had forgotten Kaiba's resourcefulness, and his ability to seemingly pull things from nowhere when convenient to him. On this occasion it was not just a second language but also a second Duel Disk that he had apparently been concealing somewhere on his person. His long fingers activated the device and waited poised to type something into the holographic keyboard it was generating with a soft yellow glow.

"Yugi calls you 'Atem' now." Kaiba grunted, matter-of-factly. "So pick a name, _Pharaoh_. I wanna make sure I'm using the right one when I tell my Blue-Eyes to blast you into oblivion".

"Either is suitable." I answered without pause, but in truth the question fascinated me. Names and true names had great power in Egypt. To my people knowing someones name permitted you power over them. I wonder if Kaiba knew this, or was simply asking to satisfy his own perfectionism.

"I am still the Pharaoh" I continued gesturing to our surroundings. I was hardly surprised by Kaiba stubbornly rolling his eyes at the statement. "However, you may also call me Atem" I finally answered. Kaiba had earned the right to such an address many times over.

He nodded and he tapped the name into the spare Duel Disk. "I'm pretty sure everyone gets to be 'the Pharaoh' of their own private afterlife."

They did not - but correcting him didn't seem worth the trouble with Kaiba's body disappearing so quickly.

"Unlike you, some of us don't have the time to spare waiting around for the afterlife to make us kings." he continued distractedly, checking over the Duel Disk's systems as menu after menu sprang up at his command. Though it was irritating as a rash, I marveled at Kaiba- comparing my nation, sovereignty and semi-divinity to his own command of Kaiba Corporation with his patented boldness as though they were one and the same without a second thought or hesitation.

He finished with the device and tossed the Duel Disk towards me, which I caught with ease. "So consider this a gift from my kingdom to yours" He declared and swept out his arms with a flourish I hadn't realized I'd missed. Despite the glaring sunlight the throne room was illuminated by the light of Kaiba's holograms. Dramatic as ever.

"You haven't changed." I observed, dryly.

Though I had to slide off one of my bracelets, the dueling contraption fit the length of my arm perfectly. I knew that was no coincidence as I placed the matching head set into position.

"Like you'd know." he muttered, covering up the quiet words with a shout of "Let's get this over with."

That had been an interesting choice of words for someone who had apparently gone to a great deal of trouble to prepare all this. Trust Kaiba to be as vexing as ever, yet it was good to see him. I'd probably never get to do so again after today.

As though answering his declaration the holographic display of my Duel Disk flashed to life, glowing text informing me in tidy lettering that a 'favorites' list of all previously played cards was logged to my user profile for quick access and that a database of all current legal cards was available via the deck builder. My deck came together easily; a stable of my most loyal monsters from the favorites list and healthy selection of wild cards from the card database for Kaiba to choke on.

My stance mirrored his own as I stood across the battlefield from him, the familiar elation of beginning one of our duels filling me up like water poured into a cup.

"Prepare to lose, Seto Kaiba!" I taunted.

**Kaiba**

He'd stood up to greet me.

Duel start had been and gone and somehow my mind couldn't get off this one single thought. It kept snapping back to it in the white noise seconds of the duel between the ending of my turn and the start of his.

People in power don't need to stand up for anything. Doing so acknowledged that the other person was a threat, or an equal. Gozaburo had taught me that to stay seated was a power play; a clear demonstration of the inferiority of the idiot left standing. He'd used it on me enough times for me to know how effective it was.

I derailed that train of thought. I had to stay focused on this duel or it was going to slip through my fingers.

As predicted, the 'King of Games' hadn't needed a tutorial on how to make the new Duel Disk work. He donned and operated it with ease. It was custom made, like my own. I'd built the pair for this purpose alone. Both featured a network of solar panels just in case of a power failure and I'd also gone to the trouble of applying a dull gold finish to his model and setting up the HUD in yellow instead of the standard blue. I wanted my memory of this to be perfect - not distracted by mismatched parts. The end result was aesthetically pleasing, as though the unit could be a high-tech extension of his tacky jewelry.

I idly noted that the AI I'd made in the Pharaoh's image needed to be updated. His 'real' body was stronger and better built that my virtual version of him and his skin tone much darker, befitting an Egyptian native. Standing here in front of me he was somehow even more than everything I'd remembered, and my memory was photographic. The outfit he was in was ridiculous, but it hardly mattered. Even with it he was still regal and mighty with every sure movement oozing an easy confidence that was so lacking in everyone else.

"I draw" He announced.

He drew his card, eye flicking to it to appraise it like a rare treasure while also giving away no reaction to identify it by. The acoustics were crap and the lighting subpar, but the room cast his eyes in a deep wine-like color that matched the red sandstone tiles beneath my feet. I grimaced as his eyes snapped from the card he'd plucked from the Duel Disk to my face and narrowed slightly. He'd caught my moment of distraction.

"How is life treating you?" He asked with a confident smirk that made me scowl.

The question interrupted my chain of thought. Was he trying to 'funny' right now? His expression remained as pompous and composed as it always was. I guess it had just been an ironic turn of phrase. The mundane question conflicted with the dramatic lines of his pose - every part of him better suited to commanding his monsters into battle or roaring at me in self-righteous fury than 'shooting the breeze'.

"Fine." I answered through gritted teeth. Pleasantries weren't part of our package deal. The hell was he thinking? "Yugi's graduated school top of his class, and Wheeler has steady employment wearing a dog costume." That made me smirk even as it made his eyebrow rise. "No, really." I added. That was probably why he'd asked. Probing for information on his 'friends'. Who despite being his 'friends' hadn't really seemed to care all that much that we was gone. "I don't care about the others." I added flatly.

Assault Wyvern was blown away by a Winged Dragon, Guardian of the Fortress and Horn of the Unicorn combo that I'd seen before in simulation. It was one of the rarer ones. The AI only used it in three point four percent of duels sampled. Of those three point four duels, sixty nine percent also contained a Gaia the Fierce Knight and Curse of Dragon polymerization play, so the moment Curse of Dragon was tribute summoned onto the field I sprang Battle Shout, one of Pegasus's newest releases. By naming a magic card in the opponents hand, Battle Shout allowed you to steal it for yourself.

I predicted Polymerization and laughed as I turned his stolen card against, him - using it fuse together X-Head Cannon, Y-Dragon Head and Z-Metal Tank into XYZ-Dragon Cannon. He smirked back as I returned to thinking about his question.

"Only duelists" - no matter how poor quality in the Mutt's case - "are worth me spending a single sliver of my valuable time checking up on". Atem nodded, seeming to understand that without needing to question it or break out into a friendship speach. Good. "Mokuba probably knows what the rest are up to" I ventured. Mokuba kept an eye on things like that.

This subset of dueling behaviors I'd named 'Kingdom Runs' since they mainly featured the older cards he'd played during Duelist Kingdom. Harvesting that data from the duel boxes so long after the fact had been time consuming, but all worth it if I could use it to crush him. Still, I wondered why the AI I'd created chose to play Kingdom Runs at all. I hadn't programmed it to experience nostalgia, if that was what this was.

This duel subset also often converged with plays from the 'Taurus Run', in which the AI purposefully played older cards that it knew would piss me off and then watched me slam my face into trap after trap in an attempt to wipe them off the field. Swords of Revealing Light, Mammoth Graveyard and every single known form of Kuriboh were mainstays, as well as magic and trap cards designed to steal my Blue-Eyes from me.

"How is Mokuba?" He asked with genuine curiosity.

"Also fine." I managed to hiss through my teeth. Living Egypt must be boring if this was the apex of conversation. "He cut his hair." I couldn't think of what else to say. 'Small talk' hadn't been among the many assets I'd prepared for this duel.

"That's good." He commented idly. Arm sweeping and limber fingers flexing as he made his next play.

Cutting the loss of his Gaia the Dragon Champion combo, he played Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts in defense mode, placing two cards face down. One of them was probably one of many different possible trap cards to cut my XYZ-Dragon Cannon's attack down to size if I moved to strike Curse of Dragon.

"You're chatty. Is this some new trick to throw me off my game?" I sneered. "What's next, Pharaoh - will you break into song?"

He chuckled at the comment, openly, clearly enjoying himself and shook his head slightly. His heavy earrings collided with his strong jawline as he did so. It made my pulse pick up. I didn't have to but I waited for him to finish and the sound to die down before starting my turn.

Whatever. I'd be the one laughing by the time this was over.

I'd come here to get a job done, but dueling him like this was heady. I'd seen all these moves before in simulation data, but playing it out with the real thing - having him in front of me - there was no feeling like it. I didn't want to waste time trying to describe it, so I didn't bother. The only channel for my energy at this moment should be this very duel.

I drew my card and that feeling of elation drained as I was reminded of my purpose.

It looked innocuous enough and had even been in my deck several times throughout my dueling career, but here and now the context behind its new and cowardly purpose left me irritated. Bitter. This was the one necessary for my plan and I scowled at it for being a harbinger of that outcome. It leered at me from my hand and I ignored it.

"I activate Virus Cannon, then I set Lord of D. onto the field and add a face down card of my own." I'd deal with whatever his face down cards were next turn.

I looked across the field to notice the Pharaoh was watching me carefully as he finished sending whichever ten spell cards Virus Cannon had claimed from his deck and hand into the graveyard. Despite running spell-heavy decks parting with the cards didn't do anything to sour his mood and he even shot me his most condescending smirk as his turn began. Then he set Kuriboh onto the field in attack mode.

My guess he'd follow up with something from the Taurus Run was correct. Statistical probabilities didn't lie.

In this scenario, the ridiculous trash monster was always protected against front on assaults. In fact, he was relying on me to take the bait and attack it out right. That irritated me just as much as the card itself. Kuriboh was rarely guarded against magic cards though. With my trump card in my hand it was time to get this done. With a stab of abject dislike, I paid the eight hundred life points to activate Brain Control and snatched the hairball to my side of the field.

I smirked back at the Pharaoh as the unexpected play had his eyebrows rising slightly, eyes warily focused on me like lasers. Looks like I'd broken even his poker face just a bit.

Eight hundred life points for a three hundred attack point monster. What a scam. But if he was playing it then he had something special planned, and I'd be dead before I allowed another insulting Kuriboh combo to hand me defeat.

I activated Gift of The Mystical Elf, the three monsters on my side of the field restoring my life points by nine hundred and then sacrificed Kuriboh with pleasure to summon Different Dimension Dragon.

The Pharaoh's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Kaiba, how is it that you seem to know how to counter every move I make before I've made it?" His voice was neutral, laced with an undertone of suspicion and none of the accusation that mine would have had in the opposite position.

I was surprised he couldn't guess; or maybe data sets and AI training was simply beyond his imagination.

"I've been running simulations against you." I replied, in no mood for dancing around the question. There wasn't enough time to be subversive. I watched the particles flake away from my body. The speed wasn't consistent with my earlier observation - the rate of decay had increased.

There was a long pause as 'Atem' frowned at me thoughtfully. I guess pairing that name with him would get easier with practice. "How many?"

Why did that matter?

I didn't have an accurate readout to hand. Even while I was sleeping or at work the computer was constantly running and re-running the simulations. Back in the real world it was probably still running them now. I hadn't told it to stop, yet. I shrugged, feeling as I did so the dampness of my sweat-soaked flight suit press against all the wrong places. "Hundreds of thousands" I estimated.

"Hundreds of thousands?" the Pharaoh repeated slowly and forcefully, as though checking what he'd heard was correct. His thoughtful frown turned into a displeased glower.

I was suddenly furious. The fucking nerve. If he'd finished our business before escaping to hide out here in this little dreamland none of it would be necessary! This was on him! Not me! It was time to put it right.

His glare eased a bit - I had no fucking idea why- and he resumed his line of questioning with a hostile curiosity. "If you can run hundreds of thousands of duels just like this, then come here at all?"

I scoffed, bitterly. Didn't he get it? He of all people should have understood.

Beating the AI hadn't felt like winning. It had felt 'inevitable'.

Once even that had seemed impossible, but with so much duel simulation data logged and both myself and a super computer applied to the task it had really only been a matter of time.

After defeating it I had returned to the victory simulation to run diagnostics; loading the AI back up again to the moment after the duel had ended with me as the winner. I wanted to see if the AI would look just as bereft as I felt each time I was handed defeat. I wanted to hear what it would say.

It did seem surprised initially, but then smirked at me and said "Well done, Kaiba. That was a good duel." I don't know why that was so unacceptable, but it had been. It was just... just. It was pedestrian! Like he was proud of me. Like I was some pet he'd taught to do a new trick.

"Because when I won, it didn't mean anything." I spat out. It wasn't the full answer, but I didn't know the full answer.

If I could have been satisfied with the AI, I wouldn't need to be here at all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Atem**

It was everything a duel with Kaiba always was, yet also it wasn't.

We both took our turns with a new immediacy and didn't bother to boast our more brilliant plays, already knowing the other would appreciate them without words. There was also a soberness to it that disquieted me. Kaiba faced me down coldly. While his frigid composure was often present at the beginning of our duels it was always quick to thaw as his stoicism became overheated by his passion for battle. That rising energy was absent here.

He watched me impassively, stance gathered together and expression set in stone. It seemed to him this was business without any pleasure until he had drawn that last card. Then that displeasure had become only thinly veiled irritation.

Chilly blue eyes had stared at it blankly, then narrowed in resentment. He seemed angered to see this card, as though it had intruded into his hand. Given all Kaiba's obvious preparation I doubted he'd have allowed something unwanted to accidentally slip into his deck. Whatever it was, it was there by design but that didn't seem to prevent it from lowering his already grim mood.

It was a selfish desire, but I didn't want this to be the atmosphere of our final duel. I wished for our last battle to elevate both of us to the pinnacle of our capabilities; to be an ultimate clash of our skills. I wanted to see Kaiba riled and intense, brandishing his cards at me with wild gestures and poses, eyes gleaming. Not like this. Not acting as though this was but a bleak obligation to be half-heartedly dealt with before whatever was next listed on his schedule. He kept loosing focus momentarily between our turns and I knew such a slip-up would be deemed unacceptable to him of all people. Something was wrong here. Coaxing him to speak revealed nothing but his own fixation on his task. It had been difficult not to smirk as my calm questions were met with only short, loud answers, until I had asked that final one. There had been a rawness to the last of his shouted words that caught me off guard. That tone kept me at bay.

 _"Because when I won, it didn't mean anything!"_ He'd spat that sentence at me as though having to force the words through his teeth and tilted his head until his hair overshadowed his eyes completely. He recovered a moment later; the past not weighing him down so long as it could be ignored. As always.

"So you've started wearing dresses and tiara's now, huh? Nice jewelry., by the way." He commented with exaggerated sarcasm, deflecting the topic away from him as it neared touching upon something personal that he would fight me just for the right not to talk about. Why that was what he chose to fixate upon I could scarcely imagine, but the jeer was hypocritical at best.

"You can't be serious?" I swept my hand toward him in an arc, gesturing down the length of his outfit and I emphasized arching an incredulous eyebrow at his own appearance. "All of that, Kaiba. What am I even looking at."

He looked so remarkably out of place here - neon lights and white leather glowing in the halls of my palace - yet also seemed to command the space with absolution. I imagined my throne room would forever seem a little duller once he was gone, though it would also be a lot more peaceful.

His single snap of laughter was genuine.

"This is all functional and entirely necessary equipment." He smirked, his tone nearing as 'playful' as I'd ever known it to get and several degrees warmer than the rest of our exchange had been thus far. "This suit keeps my body in this dimension. For the moment anyway."

I shook my head, amused. The practicality of it made it no less ostentatious. I pressed him, exactly matching the lukewarm tone of his previous comment."You look like a cyborg." Or a Duel Monster.

"Who ever heard of an ancient Egyptian king knowing what a cyborg is?" He countered. To follow he made a soft "tch" sound and then returned to business as before, sculpting his features back into stone. Our brief repartee was over just as quickly as it had begun.

I returned my thoughts to the duel, strategizing how best to beat Kaiba now that he could reliably predict me.

Kaiba's apparently well-practiced countermeasures against my last few moves had been suspicious and exasperating. Though I found the idea of him honing himself against a fake 'me' galling, it didn't change much. Kaiba had always pressed his advantage wherever he could and it had never worked out to his satisfaction. As any true duelist knew, no matter the advantage no victory was ever guaranteed and no matter what insights Kaiba believed to have at his side, I wouldn't back down from his challenge. I would play it through to the end. He deserved nothing less.

My turn came around and I was curious to see what it was that he had drawn last turn and had pulled his lips into such a thin line. "Lets see if you've simulated this!" I announced. "I active the magic card, Exchange." If whatever Kaiba was planning made the duelist himself this displeased, then I wanted forewarning.

Kaiba's jaw locked like a vice and skin turned slightly ashen for a moment. I didn't need to look at his hand to know that I had revealed at least one of his beloved Blue-Eyes White Dragons. His expression was telling enough.

I waited for him to take a step toward me, but he didn't move."What's wrong, Kaiba? Afraid to lose one of your Blue-Eyes?" I smirked. Taunting him seemed as close as I would get to animating him in the manner I hoped for.

"Are you for real right now?" He scoffed, not moving a single muscle. "Just give it a second." I understood his lack of movement in the next moment.

As the cards we used were holographic the Duel Disk automatically swapped our hands without either of us needing to cross into the center of the duel area to trade, as had been the case with the physical cards. That was a disappointment. I would have liked to have had a closer look at him one last time. Instead his cards hovered before me, waiting for me to select which of them to claim. Many of them were as familiar to me as my own.

"And just to set the record straight, taking one my Blue-Eyes will only make this worse for you." He scowled, eyes narrowing sharply. "Do it and this goes from being a duel to a slaughter."

I inclined my head, conceding his point and refocused my attention upon his cards. It was good simply to hear him speak, even only if it was to assure me my punishment for taking his cards would be swift and brutal.

There was nothing here that seemed out of place. Most were cards I'd known Kaiba to use previously. Polymerization, Ring of Destruction, two unfamiliar cards by the names of Pandemic Dragon and Dragon's Orb, and of course all three of his Blue-Eyes. I was surprised he hadn't tried to flatten me with the Blue-Eyes yet, but Kaiba had been playing strangely. He was taking great trouble to see to it our life points remained fairly equal, reluctantly defending and savagely attacking as needed to keep the balance. Him bothering to use a card that restored his own life points was not unheard of, but still rare. It contradicted his normal style of play, and absconding with Kuriboh; that had been unexpected. Was this just what his simulations told him was necessary to beat me or was it the natural evolution his dueling style had taken in the time we had been apart, however long that was?

Perhaps that was how it was meant to be. The living grow and change over time and the dead don't, yet given his look of distaste each time he set a monster into defense mode I doubted playing this way was coming naturally to Kaiba.

He shot me a dark glare across the field, clearly believing me to be about to take away one of his precious dragons. I smirked at him to set his teeth on edge and selected Polymerization to defy his expectations. He had stolen the same card from me earlier - it seemed like fair recompense. I suspected Kaiba would take Magical Hats from my own hand, just so I couldn't frustrate him with it later.

His face recovered a little color as his hand was returned to him with his dragons untouched, but it was another card that attracted his irritated scowl once more. Apparently whatever strategy he was planning that made him look so ill at ease, Polymerization hadn't been a part of it. Now his card sat ready in my hand, projected in the bright yellow color Kaiba had prepared for me that mimicked the colour of my Millennium magic rather than the futuristic neon blue he was using for himself. His attention to detail was difficult to ignore.

Playing the card, I fused together Gazelle the King of Mythical Beasts with Berfomet to create Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast. Not yet strong enough to conquer Kaiba's XYZ-Dragon Cannon, but soon to change as I empowered my new monster with Fusion Weapon to give it the edge it needed. Chimera the Flying Mythical Beast roared hungrily and struck down the machine monster - dropping Kaiba's life points and earning a glower from the taller duelist.

Whatever his new strategy, I would defeat it. Simulations or not, this game was far from done.

**Mokuba**

I'd waited around the space station for ages. Sometimes it felt like they went on forever but no matter how high tier the duelists a game of Duel Monsters took an hour - max. Even if my brother and the Pharaoh had done something really unbelievable like played a best two out of three, Seto should have been back by now with time to spare.

Now there was this pressure in my chest like some fat guy was sat on it. It had started three hours after the Dual Dimension pod's launch as I rode the space station's elevator back down to the surface on my own with a bag of Seto's stuff, already knowing that something had gone wrong. My palms were sweaty and I had to shove them in my pockets to stop them from shaking as the chauffeur drove me back to the mansion. Hobson had answered the door and tried to get me to eat something but honestly I felt like I was going to be sick so I just told him I was tired and went to my bedroom.

Until my brother came back – or failed to come back – I had to keep up the illusion of business as usual. Keep calm and pretend everything is normal, because Seto was counting on me to do that. I repeated that over and over to myself as I lay in bed still in my work clothes, not really sure if I was aiming to fall asleep or just lie here and not move until my big brother walked back through the door to get me.

" _Seto, promise you'll come back."_

He hadn't. I'd asked him to promise me he would, and he hadn't.

I think he planned to come back and I was determined not to take it personally. Don't get me wrong, my big brother was the best ever and there was no way he'd just run off to another dimension and leave me all alone on purpose... but accidents happened. He didn't always think straight. Now he was gone and I wondered if on some level he'd meant it to go down this way. Like, way deep deep down he'd chosen this as his way 'out', just like Gozaburo had chosen a window.

I'm pretty sure that thought was what set off my new nightmare. I didn't remember falling asleep, but I must have.

Everything about it was indistinct, which made it different from all of the 'penalty games' Seto and I had lost. I recalled everything about them. Seto did too. He didn't scream when the nightmares woke him up, but his eyes screamed for him for hours afterwards so I knew when he'd had one. This nightmare was softer around the edges and the center image was hard to see, like foxing on an old playing card, but the peripheral details really didn't matter.

I was in his office at KaibaCorp but none of his stuff was in there anymore, just mine. I think it was my office now. The only thing left of him was a framed picture propped up on my desk, one of the ones from the photo shoot he had a couple of weeks ago to prep for the release of the new Duel Disk system that just made him look so freaking cool. The office light caught on the picture frame as I picked it up and I could see my own face reflected in the glass. I was maybe, like, ten years older than now. I wasn't a kid anymore. I was an adult, an adult looking back at the photograph of my big brother, who was dead. Who I was older than now. Who'd never gotten to be an adult, because he'd gone away to chase after the Pharaoh and never came back.

I guess the house creaked, or the windows rattled or something. Suddenly I was wide awake and in my bed and my heart was pounding and my eyes were trying to water like a little brat's. Damn. I promised myself I wouldn't cry anymore. Crying was for kids. Seto never cried when he was my age. Seto never cried at all.

My sheets had twisted so tight around me I tried to get up and nearly fell out of bed. I tripped over onto the floor, then slumped down next to my bed and pulled my knees to my chest, holding them against me.

I would have welcomed it, you know. That dream of being stuck in a giant Capmon egg or reliving having my soul stolen. They were scary but so much better than this one.

I didn't want to think about it so I mashed my palms into my eyes and rubbed until I could see straight. Then I got up.

I didn't like being in the mansion alone. I never had. When we first got here I swore it was haunted. Seto told me it was normal to be afraid, that it was a big, dark, empty house with creepy statues and old walls that creaked and groaned but I think Gozaburo had sensed my fear. The first thing he'd done when we got here is given us bedrooms on different sides of the building and then made the rule that we were never to walk the halls at night. Seto's room had been close to Gozaburo's by design – that was the part of the mansion that saw the most use. The furnishings there were traditional but newer and the lighting was better. My room was in the section of the house meant for guests – the part that never got used and the maids didn't clean as thoroughly. That was by design too. Gozaburo had never really seen me as a permanent fixture of his household, but considering what that had meant for Seto maybe that was a good thing in the end.

After Gozaburo died my big brother claimed his place in every way, at work and in the mansion. He moved into Gozaburo's room as a spoil of war, though 'moved in' was a bit generous all things considered. Seto started sleeping in that room, but never really seemed to occupy it. He treated it more like a hotel suite. I'd moved into Seto's old room since it was closer and out of use. I liked it. Now it was mine. It still smelt like him a little even after these years, like some echo of him was still here. When he'd been in a coma in the room down the hall this was all I'd had.

I stopped at the door to my bedroom and stared at it. Would I still feel him here if he... didn't come back? Shaking that thought out of my head didn't work so I threw open the door instead and trudged down the hall. The electronic lock on his room was set to my birthday. Mine was set to his. It was an obvious pair of combinations but we'd always done it that way if we thought we may need to use each others rooms or devices. I bet he'd set his phone to match, wherever it was.

I jabbed '0707' into the keypad and it beeped at me before opening. Electronic locks and a few security upgrades were the only modern advancement he'd had bothered to make to the rooms of the Kaiba mansion, and even then only to our bedrooms. Tradition and historical architecture didn't mean a damn to Seto. Preserving the integrity of the mansion wasn't on his priority list, so I wondered why every wall hadn't been replaced with holographic projectors and the roof lined with solar panels. Either way, he hated physical keys. He loved entry cards and complex security systems, but actual metal keys with teeth that you kept on a ring and jingled in your pocket were 'relics' as he described them. Because of that nothing else in his room was ever locked, including the door to his en suite or the medical cabinet inside.

I felt bad for this, because I wasn't supposed to know any of it was here. I wasn't supposed to know about the second draw down next to his bathroom sink, about the little collection of plastic bottles filled with pills hidden in the back corner. The dates on each of the prescriptions was pretty telling. Antipsychotics in the days after Battle City, painkillers for his shoulder after the Pyramid of Light, old sedatives from right after he took over KaibaCorp. Antidepressants from a few months ago, which kinda explained why he'd been all over the map back then. The bottles had all been pretty much full when I'd started sneaking pills out. I think he'd maybe tried each prescription once or twice and then given up on them. I wonder what would have happened if Seto had stuck with them and kept on going instead of stopping the treatment two pills in. Probably nothing, but it was nice to dream.

I wonder how he even got these? Not where they came from – that was obvious. We had our own doctor and a private therapist who'd been paid to do basically nothing for like, five years. Getting the medications from either of them would have been easy for him; I just wondered how he'd broached those conversations. My brother could hardly even talk to me about personal things and I'd known him my whole life. The thought of him opening up enough to even describe the most basic of symptoms to someone else was just weird.

I ignored the antipsycotics and painkillers but tipped out a few of the sedatives. I wasn't going to get back to sleep on my own and I was also feeling pretty anxious, plus Seto wasn't going to notice. Even if he did it wouldn't be so bad, because that meant he'd be back here with me. He'd have to be alive to notice.

It was probably just because I was sneaking around, but the phone ringing in Seto's room made me jump. I stuffed the pills into my pocket and ducked my head out of the en suite and back into his bedroom.

Seto kept a landline on his desk; dunno why - he was never in here and whenever he needed a desk he used the one in his office. One thing I did know was that I could count all the people that had the number to this phone on one hand. It was Seto's private line after all; getting a hold of it was like getting a fist bump from a god. I cleared my throat and wiped my face as I approached it. Whoever actually was managing to call through on this line had to be important. I picked up the receiver and it pretty much sprang to life at the volume of the callers voice.

"Kaiba-boy! Thank goodness." Came the cheerful greeting, just mocking enough to be audible over the phone.

"Pegasus?" Oh great. What did he want now? And why the hell did he have my brother's private number?

There was a pause on the other end and he spoke again with so much added sweetness it could have made my teeth rot. "Two different Kaibas in as many days; what fabulous fortune."

Urg. Any faker and one of us would probably spontaneously choke to death on the dumbness of it all. I so wasn't in the mood for this. "Yeah, spare me. How did you get this number?" 'And don't call back' was as implied - very heavily implied.

"Nevermind that, I need to speak to Kaiba-boy" He replied. I hated when people tried to dismiss me.

"He's unavailable." I settled on. Technically that was true - if shooting yourself into another dimension in an untested prototype didn't make you unavailable then I don't know what would.

Pegasus huffed on the other line, finally dropping the sickly sweet act. "Oh please. His office has been giving me that same spiel and it's starting to bore me. Just put him on, won't you Mokuba-boy?"

Yeah, no. "What part don't you get about 'unavailable'?" I repeated the key word slowly and deliberately, hoping he'd take the hint.

His voice dropped in volume and pitch and his next words were rushed and important. "Listen you little ingrate, I may have put Kaiba-boy in very real danger and I need to speak to him." That was weird... Pegasus actually sounded genuinely concerned. I guess if you work with someone as closely as my brother did with Pegasus for long enough it just becomes practical to keep an eye out for them. After all, without KaibaCorp's tech, tournaments, officially licensed games and marketing Duel Monsters would have fallen out of the limelight by now, just like Capsule Monsters and Dungeon Dice Monsters already had.

With all that sorted in my head I was willing to give Pegasus the benefit of the doubt, but this was to do with my big brother after all. No one was going to get off free if he'd set us up.

I tried to keep my tone level but firm. "Why? What did you do, Pegasus? Try explaining it and I'll judge if it's important enough to pass along to my big brother" I lied.

There was a sigh on the other end of the phone; soft and quiet which was two words I didn't associate with Pegasus, at all.

"I'm sure your little henchman can give you the full details, but a short while ago I invited Kaiba-boy to my island to take look at a new stone tablet unearthed in Egypt."

Oh yeah - I'm sure Seto just loved that. It explained where the photograph he'd been decoding came from though.

"Yeah, I saw the photo." The translated script had been a bit weird but Seto seemed to think he knew what he was doing.

"Another piece of it has just been translated." Pegasus warned in a low voice. This was starting to sound bad. That figured. I pressed the receiver even closer up against my ear to make sure I didn't miss a word in case Seto's life ended up depending on it. It wasn't like crazier things hadn't happened. "I've arranged for both sections to be flown to the Domino Museum. They're being reconstructed as we speak." Pegasus continued, like he was building up to something dramatic.

"Why? What's so important about-"

"-Until then tell Kaiba-boy that he must not under any circumstances use that incantation!" Pegasus announced over me and the bad feeling I'd had since Seto had left doubled down.

Crap.


	5. Chapter 5

**Mahad**

"What are you doing?" Mana questioned, I slowly opened my eyes to view her. Her head was tilted slightly to the side in curiosity making her unruly hair stream down her shoulder. She was the picture of confusion.

"Waiting." I replied with a smile.

The Other Seto was a stranger to everyone but the Pharaoh, Mana and myself. A soul was a curious thing - able to be divided into multiple parts and stored in many places in a state that was both separate and linked. A part of my soul and that of my apprentice would forever be sealed in the tablets of Egypt, still preserved in the tombs and museums of the living world. Re-imagined as cards, we had looked upon the face of Seto's pale reincarnation many times as he did battle against the Pharaoh. The tether between soul fragments was loose; the memories I gleaned this way were distant but no less exact. Seeing him once more was unnerving, but perhaps that was simply because he so resembled the other priest who stood here waiting with me.

Seto was quietly seething from his position across the archway and had been since the Pharaoh had dismissed us and his white counterpart had mocked him. It had set him in a very poor mood. While I was contented to wait patiently just beyond the throne room should I be needed by my Pharaoh, Seto was clearly and unashamedly attempting to ease-drop on their conversation. He tapped his foot angrily in an ever increasing rhythm. I could only surmise he was unable to hear anything and would also guess that it was the very noise he was creating that was preventing him from doing so.

"The temple is ready for the Pharaoh's review of my offerings." drifted Isis's silken voice. I hadn't noticed her approach and judging by the way Seto abruptly wheeled around attempting to find the source of her statement, nor had he. He glared at Isis as she stepped into the courtyard, leering at her in a way that was both incredulous and irritated. "I have no patience for your silent ambushes, Isis."

"Of course you do not" Isis retorted in false agreement, respectfully lowering her head as she did so. I followed the thread she was unraveling easily.

"Patience is the measure of a true sorcerer." I told Mana, my tone soft yet the words loud enough to travel the distance to Seto's ears. As predicted, he aimed a foul look at me. Teasing him was too easy.

"So is decisiveness." He bit back, snake-like. "How can you be so relaxed? We should dispose of this intruder before his presence here takes root." Seto's hand instinctively flexed to grip at the Rod that was no longer in his possession.

I glanced to Isis and she to me in that same moment. We shared the same thought. Of course it would be Seto's first instinct to dispatch a man who was for all intensive purposes 'himself'. He and Seto Kaiba seemed to share their mutual dislike of one another.

"No." I replied simply, my eyes and voice turning on Seto sternly the moment the suggestion had been given. I locked my eyes with his, lending weight to my words. "Seto Kaiba may be an intruder but he is no enemy. He is your reincarnation from the living world."

Seto snatched his head to the side defiantly and scowled at the assertion.

"The two of you may be too similar for your comfort, but he is a valued friend to the Pharaoh-"

"-We are nothing alike." Seto swiftly snapped back.

"Are you not?" I slowly pondered aloud with false contemplation. "You share a role, a face, a name and boast the White Dragon as your champion..." I continued, refusing to pause even as his sharp bark of "What!?" threatened to interrupt me at the news his beloved beast served his modern incarnation as readily as she served he himself. "...yes, there are truly no commonalities at all." I finished.

"Sarcasm does not suit you!" He hissed back through gritted teeth. His nerves were now obviously on edge, though it was difficult to tell which part had upset him most.

"Perhaps not." I agreed, bringing my mockery to an end. "However the fact remains he has proven himself a formidable ally. Ending his life is not a proposal to approve of. Do not entertain the thought."

Seto's lip curled at the reprimand and he crossed his arms against his chest sulkily.

"He is an imposter; not fit to command _her_." He sneered quietly to himself, an undertone of betrayal thick in his voice.

Of all the many facets of the situation to take aim at it was interesting that it was the loyalty of his dragon that drew his ire most readily. Our High Priest did not know what it was to be reborn as a card-bound spirit in the living world. He did not understand that while the devotion of the White Dragon was given freely to Seto Kaiba this was not obligated to be so, as one of the dragons had very well proven when it refused him. Yet even in spite of his rage and duplicity the spirit of the White Dragon saw qualities redeeming enough in Seto Kaiba to secure her continuing fealty - a trait that our Pharaoh shared too.

Indeed, we would do well to be cautious in how we approached Seto Kaiba.

The Pharaoh named him his friend. Once I had named Isis the same. That, the attentiveness with which the Pharaoh had attended him in the throne room and the vehemence with which he had fought against all that would do the other harm in the living world made me contemplative.

"You call him an ally, and yet he has imposed his presence upon this world without the Pharaoh's permission." Isis noted, keeping her tone even, "It is reckless for the living to haunt the dead". Seto's expression grew suspicious as Isis agreed with his point of view. He leaned back slightly to increase his own height. I wonder why he bothered; he was already the tallest person here.

Mana's torn expression revealed a mistrust, as did Isis's tone. It seemed that my mind alone remained open to the Pharaoh's guest.

Of our congregation I had taken it upon myself to show 'Kaiba' the least hostility, yet I was also the only soul beyond my Pharaoh who fully understood what terrible acts he was capable of. Even Mana had only found a place in the Pharaoh's deck as the Dark Magician Girl after the darkest of his actions had already been committed. I saw memories of early battles as clearly as I saw my companions in front of me. His face was a grim recollection - a desperate or half-mad boy in blue with empty eyes and cruel intentions; a thief and a coward determined to tear apart what he could not possess.

Yet still a youth, nevertheless. A point worthy of attention.

"He is little more than a boy" I stated. Hidden from sight beneath the soft layers of our robes Isis covered my hand with hers and squeezed it softly. I was thankful for her calm strength at this time. I returned the gesture.

"I respect the courage to make such a comment, as several among us are also 'little more than boys'." Isis agreed diplomatically. "Yet had power enough to demand his challenge be observed by the Pharaoh" she mused aloud to herself. I wonder how she knew of this already. Could it be she had foreseen this day once before while she had been guardian to the powers of the Millennium Necklace? "A demand that the Pharaoh saw fit to grant." Isis added.

I understood the path the priestess's thoughts were traveling.

Granting such an audience was the right of the Pharaoh alone and with exception to our own Seto and myself I doubted a challenge from any of the priesthood would have been accepted so easily. To do so was to acknowledge the challenger as an equal.

It seemed Seto's thoughts had reflected my own. "He claimed he was the king of his world and that the Pharaoh named me the ruler of Egypt after his sealing." He shot a look at me that mirrored the note of challenge in his statement. I shook my head at him softly, telling him without words that I truly had no further insight on the subject to offer. Seto's shoulders fell a little in disappointment before their owner squared them again to hide such a thing. He scowled viciously at me for good measure and then slunk off to the side to lean non-nonchalant against a pillar.

"I know only this-" I offered, hoping to soothe the young High Priest's upset. He had risen from humble beginnings and it was easy to forget that he did not share the same tolerance for the vague or uncertain that those normally raised to his office had been educated from childhood to accept. "Seto Kaiba is no king but he has dedicated himself to acquiring wealth and power in a world where these things are worth more than royal blood. By his own standards, he did not lie."

Isis hummed thoughtfully and her expression drew inward, becoming contemplative. Her hand ghosted across her empty clavicle. "I had a vision similar to this once. The Other Seto will use an incantation to bargain he and the Pharaoh back into the world of the living."

Was that his goal here? To deprive the Pharaoh of a world beyond his reach? It explained much and failed to explain so much more. Seto Kaiba had not arrived here wearing the violence of a conqueror nor the guile of a thief. Had his desires been so simple or his heart so heavily weighted I doubt the gods would have allowed him entry into this afterlife.

"It seemed the result did not achieve his intentions." She noted. That was of little surprise. Should returning the dead to life ever become so trivial the balance of life itself would become upset.

A rueful smirk was the only response given by Seto, though as his immediate concern was satisfied his anger for the subject of our vexation returned in earnest. "He'd be foolish to try and each of you would be indolent to allow it."

"As would you." I countered easily. Seto's eyes narrowed a little, while Mana and Isis exchanged glances at my side. It seemed we all knew he had been bested. With an irate flurry of his robe he turned on his heel and prowled away.

Mana lingered close to me as he made his exit and then gently yet conspiratorially nudged me in the arm in reprimand. I nodded to my apprentice with amusement and was pleased that she needed no instruction to resume Seto's position by the entry way. It did indeed have the best vantage point for overhearing conversations in the throne room. Her attempt at ease-dropping was even more obvious than Seto's had been, but at the very least it was mirthful.

I closed my eyes once more, content to align myself with the energies of the world until I was needed.

Bmpf bumpf bumpf bmpf bpf.

I leaned out of my wardrobe as the sound of feet charging up the stairs thudded from the hallway.

I'd wanted to finish this up before Joey came over but he was early. I frowned as I ran the leather pants through my hands one last time. I still liked the smooth texture even if they weren't really my thing. They'd been expensive and they would be warm to wear in the fall but I doubted I'd be able to bring myself to put them on, plus I had a style of my own now. I nodded to myself. Moving on was hard, but important and after telling Kaiba he needed do the same I couldn't keep hanging on to the past without becoming a hypocrite. They were just pants, and Atem wouldn't have wanted me to worry about them.

Knuckles smacked against my bedroom door as I reached my decision. "Hey Yug', I'm comin' in - y'decent in there?" Joey called out.

"Yep. Come on in." I folded up the last old t-shirt and the pants. The convenience store bag on my bed crinkled as I added them to it.

"Not doin' anythin' weird with yer socks?" He teased with a killer grin on his face as he poked his head through the door.

"That was one time!" The wording made it sound so perverted!

"Hehe." He shrugged the joke off and stepped into my room with a friendly snicker. There was a dull thump as he dropped his messenger bag on the floor and a spray of resumes slid out.

"I really wish Grandpa hadn't told you about that." I complained halfheartedly, returning his cheesy smile. "I was matching sock pairs to hone my gaming instincts, nothing weird." I explained, again, trying not to go red.

"Suuuuure Yug'" Joey drawled, padding across the floor to flop down on my bed. He stretched out with a contented sigh and then sat back up and shook his fist in the air.

"Man, Tristan better finish up that apprenticeship at his dad's place soon! It's too weird havin' everyone outta town." Yeah it was. With Tristan busy working for his dad, Téa in America and Duke away on vacation it was pretty quiet. "And I need him t'fix my Duel Disk again." Joey added with a huff, sticking out his lower lip to look put out.

I chuckled at him. "You didn't spill more cereal into it did you?" Not again.

"No!" Joey blurted. "Maybe." He pulled a face of deep concentration and scratched his chin. "I dunno" he finished.

"You should really take it off when you eat." Now it was my turn to do the teasing.

Joey rose to it eagerly, waving his arms in the air for comedic effect, "But then how will everyone know I'm a duelist! And if people don't know I'm a duelist I won't ever get scouted fer a sponsorship!"

"You're expecting to be scouted at breakfast?" I questioned, quirking my eyebrow and grinning at him. Joey's energy was contagious. It wasn't a surprise he was getting stir-crazy with things as peaceful as they were.

"Y'never know Yug', y'never know." He repeated, stretching out on my bed again nonchalantly. His elbow brushed against the plastic bag and it rustled with the impact. He pulled his arm away to look down at what he'd accidentally started lying on.

"Hey, what's all this?" Two of Joey's fingers hooked around on of the handles to open up the bag for inspection.

"Just some clothes to go to charity." I shrugged, not minding as his attention scattered toward the bag.

"So you wanna head over to the museum tomorrow?" Joey asked as he absentmindedly as he riffled through it. "I heard they're lookin' fer a -". Abruptly he paused, making a curious 'oo'ing sound. He shook out the bag and it felt like a bead of sweat slid down my forehead as I watched all the clothes I'd folded up tumble back onto my bed in a messy pile. "-You donatin' yer leathers? Ain't they like, almost brand new." He dug the pants out of the heap to check them out.

"Uh-huh. But I only ever wore them for dueling so I don't really need them anymore..." I wanted to put dueling behind me and make my own way in the world actually designing games instead of just playing them. I'd made some notes already. Something I could play together with all of my friends sounded fun. Maybe a board game?

Besides, I wasn't the one who'd liked the feeling of light leather, or heavy jewelry, or the sun on my arms. That was all Atem. Having no memory must have been so weird. To not know who you were or what you liked. He'd barely known his own preferences and didn't like imposing them on me so I'd adopted them for him.

I stared at the pants, probably for too long. Joey cleared his throat as he stowed them back into the bag.

"Y'know if y'ever wanna talk about him I'm right here."

"Yeah..." I nodded, suddenly finding the floor super interesting. "Thanks, Joey." I quietly added, smiling a little.

He gave me a thumbs up. "Anytime Yug'. I mean it." And he really did. Joey was the best best friend anyone could ask for.

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly as a lull in the conversation went on for too long and changed the subject.

"So. Y'heard from Téa?"

I had! I'd texted him about it but he lived in a part of Domino where the coverage wasn't great so he often didn't pick them up.

"She landed a few hours ago." I confirmed. Téa's messages had been brimming with happiness. I wouldn't see her face to face for a while but her joy even over text was obvious. "Apparently the flight was pretty boring so she ended up watching movies back to back." I added.

Joey snorted. "No kiddin'. Glad that ain't me. Flyin' makes me feel all cooped up and as soon as I get off one I just gotta grab a shower." He shuddered dramatically at the thought.

Téa had been tired after the flight so the conversation hadn't lasted long but we'd made a promise to try and talk online every Saturday. I was going to miss seeing her in person but studying dance in American was her dream. "She's so excited about starting her classes." I smiled softly at the thought, until the image of Téa in her ballet leotard danced across my mind. I looked away to hide my blush.

Joey bolted upright on my bed and pumped his arm, suddenly all hyped up too. "We should go see her sometime! Once I get a new job I can start savin' up again."

Wow. That would be great. "Yeah!" My enthusiasm mirrored his, "Téa said there's an end of term production. She was going to video it for us but being there would be so much better!" And it would mean the world to her.

"You bet!" Joey turned to the stack of resumes now strewn about my bedroom floor. "I just gotta hand all'a these out tomorrow and hustle up the dough for the plane ticket."

I nodded vigorously. "I'll start saving too. I was going to start working full time at the shop anyway to give Grandpa a break."

"Cool." He grinned. Those flights weren't cheap so we'd have to work hard but we could do anything we put our hearts into.

I chuckled out loud. Not too long ago we were facing down against monsters and magic and now that we'd graduated from school the biggest obstacle in our lives was just getting together enough money for plane tickets. Life had become so normal, and that wasn't a bad thing, but it was very different. I'd become so used to the crazy lifestyle that came with Atem that even after all this time I was still readjusting. Mainly I liked the calm but sometimes I missed those hectic days of duels and bad guys with all my friends at my back.

I guess Joey was thinking the same thing.

"Man." He sighed, "Everythin's changin' so quick." It really was. Joey turned back to the grocery bag and frowned at the pants.

"You should keep em' Yug'" He grabbed them from the bag and tossed them at me - the leather material slapped me around the head before I could catch them.

"You really think?" I asked, peeling them off of my face.

"Sure I do." Joey nodded with conviction, the motion making his messy hair fly off in different directions. "Maybe in a few years they'll be like a collector's item and you can sell em' and get rich!"

The idea of selling off Atem's clothes was uncomfortable. "I don't think I'll do that." I replied quickly as I glanced from Joey's sunny expression down to the pants. Maybe I should keep them? The reminder was a little painful now but what if I regretted getting rid of them five years from now? I could hang onto them until I knew what I wanted to do with them. "...But yeah ok, I'll keep them a bit longer."

"Heh." Joey's smile became a massive grin as I folded them back up to put away. Maybe he needed the reminder of all our adventures with Atem as badly as I did. "Plus you may need em' sometime, y'know. Never know when Kaiba's gonna come sniffin' around fer another duel." He added with a scoff.

"I'm pretty sure that was the last time that's going to happen" I pointed out.

Which probably meant he was out of our lives too now. Between Atem leaving and the duel with Diva we hadn't see or heard anything from either of the Kaiba brothers and I guessed we'd gone back to that status quo again. It was disappointing. I liked the Kaibas - both of them - but they'd always been on the edges of our group and without Atem around to keep Kaiba interested they'd just drifted away.

I frowned. "I don't think were going to see either of them again." That was a sad thought.

Joey shrugged and scratched at the side of his nose. "Y'know they only live like an hour away, right? Thirty minutes if y'don't have to take the bus."

"Yeah. That's true." But I couldn't imagine just stopping by their mansion and Kaiba casually inviting me in. Wouldn't I just be being mean by reminding him of Atem? He would probably slam the door in my face, or grill me for what I wanted from him and then slam the door in my face.

I sighed. I just didn't 'get' Kaiba the way Atem had. As a duelist he was fairly predicable - always using dragon-heavy beat down or contamination decks all designed around getting his Blue-Eyes onto the field as quickly as possible - but as a person I couldn't read him half as well.

_"Nice to see you too."_

That had been such a weird greeting. He'd said it so sarcastically... but that had become Kaiba's calling card. Get mad, or get sarcastic. It didn't mean there wasn't a bit of truth to it too. Maybe he'd really meant it and I just brushed him off? It _was_ nice to see him and if he'd showed up any other time it would have been different, but back then Bakura had just gone missing and I didn't have time for Kaiba's usual showboating.

Not to mention it had been in the pouring rain, and he'd been creating a traffic hazard.

"He had the worst timing." I sighed to myself.

"Eh, forget about 'im dude. He ain't worth the trouble." Joey retorted.

"I guess." But I wasn't convinced.

"Oh!" Joey held up one finger like he'd just had the best idea and his eyes shone with mischief.

"What?" I asked, confused by the sudden outburst and a little suspicious.

"That's who you should sell the pants to!"

What?! "Ew, Joey. Gross! No way!"

Joey burst into a fit of laughter. "Kaiba's such a creep it'd probably werk too!" He guffawed.

I felt myself blush, but didn't know why. Joey was laughing at Kaiba, not me. Probably because even when Atem had been control it was still my body that had been wearing said pants.

"Did you wash em'? Bet he'd pay double if you didn't!" He pressed, waggling his eyebrows at me suggestively before loosing it again and starting to snort between the laughs, which made me laugh too.

"Haha. Ok, ok, please stop." I told Joey, wiping away a tear of amusement. It wasn't fair to let him poke fun. Atem and Kaiba had a complicated friendship. Atem had been all muddled up about it but he'd once described Kaiba to me as 'a valued opponent'. The description was cool, but his feelings had been warmer than that. I hadn't really known what to make of it back when we were together; I still didn't now, but that desperate despairing look on Kaiba's face as Atem failed to appear after slotting the Puzzle back together wouldn't leave me alone.

It made me think that maybe there had been more going than either of them had ever known.

**Seto**

If they bowed any lower, they would merge with the earth itself. That was the only thing keeping my temper at bay.

I could not find peace in stillness, so I paced up and down the line of them, each man tensing as I passed him. Good. No matter who my look-alike was to the Pharaoh he clearly did not belong here, his unsightly garb shone like a star at night. These guards would have to have been blind and deaf not to notice his entry into the palace, so how had he breached the Pharaoh's throne room so carelessly? It was a question I would not allow to go unanswered.

I came to stand in front of the largest of the supplicants. Despite being the captain of the guard, his fearful tone reflected the knowledge that he knew as well as I that there would be little mercy if his answer displeased me.

"We mistook him for you, High Priest."

Mistook him for me? "How?" He was as pale as alabaster and dressed louder than a chorus of buzzards.

"How-" I began again, lowering my voice to a soft, almost friendly hiss and I turned the captain's chin up from the ground with the end of my foot "-do you intend to rectify your grave error of judgment?"

For a man twice my body weight he cowered like a desert mouse. I stomped my foot against him where the thick column of his neck met his shoulder, dropping him back to the floor. Truly, this was the man tasked with keeping the Pharaoh's foes outside the palace gates? His gutlessness disgusted me.

"We assumed it was a spell made to test us, High Priest." He added, the rushed words spilling across the sand like shed blood.

Once I would have been capable of such a thing, had turning myself milk-colored had any value, yet this guard's assumption was ever unforgivable. He was either a fool grasping for an excuse or a lunatic attempting to test me. The palace guard had no place for either.

"Be gone from my sight." I snarled, jabbing my finger towards the city gates, wishing I was brandishing the Rod instead. The loss of it and its great gifts struck at me like a scorpion's sting. A hand empty of the Millennium Rod felt almost like the hand of a stranger. How many times had I reached for it, moved to run my fingers over its immaculate finish, only to feel its loss again as keenly as the moment the Pharaoh told us the Millennium Items had no place in paradise. Wisely, the now former guard captain neither hesitated or raised his eyes to mine, keeping them to his feet as he hastily complied. His spear lay dormant and discarded as he speedily put as much distance between us possible.

I glared back at the procession of men still kneeling silently before me. Of the nine of them, only one met my gaze. He lifted his eyes to mine warily before realizing I had caught his presumption and looking away again. Fine. That would do. Better to have someone wary and brave than incompetent and cowardly.

"You." I decided.

"Yes, High Priest?" He shouted back, matching my volume and keeping his eyes to himself.

"You are now captain of the guard. Refill your ranks and resume your duties." He inclined his head in understanding. "And let it be known that I do not wish to be disturbed until night has fallen." I added, beholding him bow his head even more deeply in response to my instruction.

"Yes, High Priest-" He repeated. "-It will be so."

Good. I turned my back on the line of cowards and I left them there as I reoriented myself toward my next destination. Anger heated my blood with an ease even the sun itself could not match as I strode forward.

The mimic of me had laughed in my face and then turned his back on me; opening himself to my attack as though I were a sickly mongrel beneath his notice, unable to harm him. He had also named himself a Pharaoh. In fact, he'd said several things I could not believe the Pharaoh had permitted to go unchallenged and then as a final insult he had ignited my temper with a terrible precision.

The Pharaoh spoke to us little of his time in the living world. It was beyond us to pry into the affairs of a living god. Briefly in passing he had told Isis and I of our reincarnations; that hers was just as graceful and noble, that mine was just as tenacious and ambitious. The Pharaoh had not deceived me but as one who had once pulled monsters from the hearts of men I could see that his soul bore the stains of wickedness too. I had expected him to be more like myself from the Pharaoh's account, but instead he was akin to a disturbed reflection in a pool of poisoned water.

Was it his coarse words and impudent sentiments that the Pharaoh had been searching to coax from me on our afternoon walks?

Ridiculous! I was not inferior to this pale imitation and I would not allow Mahad's indolent refusal to strike out against him to be my folly as well. Clearly this 'Seto Kaiba' was of some fleeting amusement to the Pharaoh but if Isis's prediction was to be believed then his intentions were far from harmless. He had dark ambitions for our Pharaoh and I would not permit them to come to pass - especially not with the indentured spirit of Kisara as his weapon of choice!

He had no right to her!

I would free her from his enslavement, and if she was his truest champion as Mahad believed he would easily fall to the Pharaoh once she was no longer bound to heed his call.

My expression was thunderous. No priest approached me as I gathered my instruments and several averted their eyes and scuttled out of my path like rodents scattering under firelight as I marched back through the temple. Even the most elite of the royal guards wished nothing to do with me. They merely struck their staves against the floor in respect as I passed by to breech the threshold of the Ceremonial Boulevard and entered the Shrine of Wedju beyond. It was a sacred place, one very few were permitted to step foot in.

The air grew hotter and heavier with each echoed step I took as I departed the world outside with its wind and sunlight for a place of stone gods and demons. I scowled as I beheld what had become of this holy site. The braziers were no longer lit and dust and sand had blown in through the grand entrance to creep across the floor. In the Pharaoh's afterlife summoning Ka was no longer a necessity for the defense or survival of our lands and it seemed the caretakers of the Shrine had grown complacent in light of this. I would reprimand them sternly for their failure to perform their duties. With a rub of my hands against one another and silent incantation the tip of my finger illuminated in a blaze of Dark-Piercing Light. I held my hand out and aloft in front of me as the shining spellcraft lit my passage into the Shrine's utter abyss.

Finally there were no further steps to take.

Something scurried in the void. I did not dwell on it, though the possible progenitors of the sound set my skin crawling. I had come here to find her – to free her – not to allow myself to be distracted my things my eyes could not see.

My fingers trailed the walls of the expansive chamber, beholding for the first time since awakening in the Pharaoh's afterlife the visages of all of the monsters and fiends I had pulled free of their mortal avatars and sealed into stone by the power of the Millennium Rod. Most of these Ka were ugly, wretched things, closer in appearance to the denizens of nightmare than they were the men and women I had extracted them from. They came in every shape and size – each deformed body, twisted face and extra limb a reflection of the horrors of the human heart. They lined the chamber from bottom to top, tablets stacked upon one another as tiles in a wall of monstrosities... yet the creature I sought among the ranks of all others was no foul beast or worthless cur. She was light and strength and beauty incarnate.

She was the same as ever.

Three hundred and nine paces into the chamber moving westward from the entrance, second row from the bottom, exactly as I remembered her when we had sealed the tablets underground. Her stone was warm to my touch, smooth, flawless... She deserved better than imprisonment in this airless tomb among these scum. She deserved a place in the sun with the sky above her, and she certainly deserved liberation from whatever the ill will of my malicious reincarnation demanded. As a pleasant consequence the Pharaoh's inevitable victory would come to pass even quicker and our world be rid of his unnatural presence once and for all.

I knelt before her, tracing the curving lines of her neck with my fingers and readied my spell. Despite the fineness of the chert and golden handle my ritual knife still made for a poor substitute to the blade that once slumbered within the Millennium Rod, but I would make do.

The reverberating song of the White Dragon echoed in my soul as I began the ritual that would untether her spirit from his. Come sunset she would be set free from Seto Kaiba.


	6. Chapter 6

**Kaiba**

The sun was setting.

It was low enough in the sky that it couldn't angle its way through the opening above the throne anymore. The rays now didn't reach far enough into the room to catch on the Pharaoh's jewelry or hair either and that was a relief; the glare from him had been obnoxious. Now it just cast everything into very long shadows.

We'd moved into the end game. This was the crucible of our duels. The last few moments in which he always managed to snatch up victory regardless of everything I hit him with, winning the right to tell me everything that was wrong with myself. As if I needed some dead guy to tell me how to live.

The loss of particulate had made its way all down my body, eating into my shoulders and across my arms. The tips of my boots and fingers had begun to dissolve but I could still feel my digits when I touched them against my thumb. It was... weird. My flightsuit circulated a store of the Quantum Cube's energy across the surface of my body to keep me here in this dimension but the charge was limited and wouldn't last forever. Reducing one of the ridiculous 'Millennium Items' to the mundane life of my personal battery pack felt like a deserving outcome after each and every time some magic-powered freak had used one to meddle in my business, but the Cube apparently wasn't even that good at the job. In tests my suit had been able to hold about six hours worth of charge, but from observing the rate of the particle decay I had to conclude it was letting me down.

There wasn't going to be enough time to end this and the Pharaoh and I both knew it.

As we left the mid game behind our movements had been quick but smooth - now they were rushed on both sides, every move declaration hurried. Neither of us wanted to leave this unfinished. A single one of my Blue-Eyes, Castle of Dragon Souls, The Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl made up all that was left on the field. This was it.

"You better not mess up!" I shouted at him.

The Pharaoh was focused on completing each turn as hastily as possible. Even though it was to my benefit I'd never forgive him if he slipped up. I wanted to beat him at his best, not when we were too pressured to play it out properly.

Red eyes lifted from his hand, "I was about to tell you the same" He replied easily, smug as ever.

As if.

I'd made sure our life points were equal. Five hundred points each wasn't much to work with. The window in which to use my trump card was closing. After this turn it might be gone for good.

Blue-Eyes snarled eagerly at my side, itching to finish this just like I was. Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon and Deep-Eyes White Dragon might be handy innovations but nothing would ever compare to my signature beast. I had to hand it to Pegasus that the snake really knew how to play the game. Every time Industrial Illusions had a bad quarter he'd put out some new Blue-Eye's themed card that was next to useless in anyone else's deck and sell it to me for a ridiculous profit. It was scheming and I almost respected it.

"Blue-Eyes, destroy the Dark Magician Girl with Burst Stream of Destructio- Arg!"

White hot pain shot through my skull like a missile. Fuck. My fingers massaged my forehead reflexively while every light source in the room suddenly exploded like a super nova.

The Pharaoh's victorious expression fell into curious concern in an instant; like I was weak enough to need it. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing" I bit out through gritted teeth, waiting for the photo-sensitivity to pass. That's what I got for traipsing around in a damn desert. It probably just dehydration, or possibly the onset of a mild heatstroke. Nothing I couldn't handle. This duel wasn't going to take long, I'd have my doctor check me out back in the real world as soon as it was over.

A sudden roar from Blue-Eyes stabbed at my brain.

"Garooooou!"

That wasn't normal. Though there were a few exceptions it generally wasn't programmed to vocalize outside of summoning, de-summoning and attack commencement. I watched it, catching the Pharaoh's equally confused look in my peripheral vision.

Something was wrong.

It called out a second time, almost like it was in agony. I'd heard this tone before, when the Pharaoh had defiled my Blue-Eyes by fusing them into the rotting carcass of Mammoth Graveyard. I could feel its pain; it was like I'd been stabbed in the heart.

"Blue-Eyes?" My voice sounded small and I hated it and I stared my dragon. There was a crack... a tiny crack on the left side of its chest quickly creeping outward and across my dragon's body. Pure white light shone out of the wound as it opened up, spreading like ice breaking.

Had I missed something? Did the Pharaoh play a card while I was distracted?

"What did you do?!" I yelled at him. Blue-Eyes' growled quietly as the effect covered its head and stretched out across its wings.

"Nothing. This isn't my doing." He replied firmly. It didn't look like he was lying. In fact he looked just as damn weirded out by this as I was. The card log agreed with him - there was no record of anything being played that could do this.

"Then what-" I didn't even get time to finish my damn sentence.

With a final bellowing roar and a flexing of its wings Blue-Eyes... imploded. I couldn't move or blink or even fucking breathe as it shattered into glass and the shards vapourized in front of my face.

I must have looked like an idiot just staring slack-jawed at the gap on the field it left behind, until the cards in my hand started to heat up.

"Ahg!" I gritted my teeth as the same web of spidery cracks crawled over half the cards in my hand! It didn't matter that they were holograms and it should have been impossible; my Deep-Eyes White Dragon and Blue-Eyes Alternative White Dragon cards turned blistering hot as they broke apart between my fingers and burst into tiny specks of holographic dust! My Duel Disk chimed loudly to announce Blue-Eyes Chaos MAX Dragon and Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon had also been removed from my fusion and ritual decks as a glittering blue hail of what used to be my dragons disintegrated all around me.

There was a silence as I stared at the remains in disbelief and my heart jackhammered in my chest. All of my Blue-Eyes card – gone. From every corner of my deck! This was ridiculous! I was unheard of!

"...Tch." All I could do was scoff.

"I assure you, I had no part in that." The Pharaoh insisted with a wary frown.

"Save it!" I snapped. I had no idea what just happened but we didn't have time to stand around and debate it like a pair of morons.

I'd been counting on Blue-Eyes' attack points and any victory without it on the field would be hollow and off-brand, but I could make do.

"I play Silver's Cry to special summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon onto the field from my Graveyard." I announced.

With a deep song-like call the dragon was spirited onto the field. I'd decided to discard it to the graveyard to earlier with Dragon Shrine; now I had a new purpose for it.

"And that's not all." I added as Castle of Dragon Souls came into effect. "Thanks to my Castle, Red-Eyes gains another seven hundred attack points." And just like that I was back on top. It made me smirk.

"Now, Red-Eyes, devour the Dark Magician Girl!" I commanded, pointing what was left of my finger at the card in question. My Red-Eyes dutifully fried her with its signature blast.

"Finally, I play two cards face down and end my turn." My dragon growled beside me as I did so.

I turned my eyes on the Pharaoh, taking in every single inch of him. Every line in his body, every shade in his eyes, every inhalation and exhalation of breath. He stood completely still under my inspection, meeting it with his own and swallowed thickly enough for me to see from even this distance.

"Are you ready for this to be over?" He asked with a genuine and heavily weighted curiosity, regarding me so intently I briefly wondered if I'd missed something.

"Of course I am! Now stop wasting my time and make your last move!" I shouted.

With a smirk he exhaled slowly and drew his card, as if it was that fucking easy. It would be exactly what he needed to beat me. It always was. He didn't even look at it before slowly moving to put it into play.

"This is the end, Kaiba." He told me with absolute confidence and my gut clenched as I fully believed him. Turning a sure defeat on its head was what the Pharaoh was best at, after all.

"Not if I have anything to say about it! In fact, we were just getting started." I bellowed as the Pharaoh's dexterous fingers slapped the card he'd drawn onto his Duel Disk.

"I activate the magic card Dark Magic Expanded, causing my Dark Magician's attack power to raise by one thousand points." He announced over me.

Gaining those attack points gave his magician the edge against my dragon. So this would have been the answer without Pegasus's cheat? Another loss? The face down cards I'd saved might give me a 'win', but to me it would still be a defeat by any metric that mattered.

He leveled his hand at my Red-Eyes, bracelet flashing with the reflection of the sun as he did so. "Dark Magic Attack!"

The Magician twirled his staff cockily and lifted it upwards.

It was time to see if Pegasus's little trick would play out.

I called up the holographic keyboard of my Duel Disk, typing to retrieve the photograph I'd uploaded into its memory bank.

If this didn't work then there wasn't going to be chance for a rematch, not with my body vanishing so quickly. I'd lived my life in death matches of one form or another, playing to win and knowing there would be only one chance given to do so. This time there was a hack to secure more than one attempt at my goal and I'd take it. I wasn't afraid to cheat. It wasn't my preference but I'd realized soon after the Pharaoh had died off-screen that I couldn't get on with my life until our battle was resolved. Until I'd defeated him I couldn't live in any way that mattered to me. Not in the way Mokuba needed me to.

I glanced to the holographic display hovering off to the side. The translated white text version flashed up in front of me. Time to see if it worked. I smirked at Atem and hoped the expression was a damn dark one. "I thought I told you this already, we're not done until I say so!"

It was time to start this train-wreck. I ripped my eyes from his face to the projection of the text and read the first line aloud.

"Shah-na'i, mehsoud sou-eie, sah-na'i em pehr-wee -"

I'd memorized what the translation of the tablet said - knew its little hocus pocus chant off by heart by this point. I could read it off the photograph for myself but like hell I'd put my faith in a skill I couldn't quantify the origin of. Understanding the language was an unknown asset; useful, but I wasn't going to take it to the bank and try cashing it in when I had a perfectly bullshit-proof decryption program to fall back on.

Atem looked at me curiously as I pronounced the first words, recognizing they were unfamiliar to him. Then his eyes grew wary. Even his Dark Magician lowered his staff back down and waited stoically for the Pharaoh's reaction instead of completing it's attack, watching like it somehow knew something was about to go down despite only being a complex rendering of thoughtless ones and zeros.

"Kaiba." Atem warned, stern and sounding in control even as his eyes narrowed. He practically oozed distrust. So much for friendship and faith and all that bull.

"- Sechem, Mecheroud..."

I continued the 'incantation' over him without pausing for a second. I'd wondered if he'd be able to understand it. I didn't look like it from the confusion on his face. I'd done some digging to find it was written in a form of the language exclusively used by ancient Egypt's priesthood. I couldn't say I was surprised. Language was just another tool at the disposal of the ruling caste to widen up that convenient class divide and keep them in lavish palaces and stupid hats. It was probably below the station of the 'Pharaoh' to speak it.

"Ah-ken-ee, Het nebet, sh'sah-ah, mm-chear, rempet-kah _._ "

"Whatever you're doing stop it now!" He shouted. I glanced up, frowning for a moment.

Neither of us had moved, but his voice sounded far away. I read his lips as much as heard his words. I sneered at him between words and continued. What was this? There was a ringing in my ears and it was becoming harder to breathe. This feeling - I felt like I was draining down onto the floor.

One of my knee-pads thudded loudly against the stone floor. I felt the impact of the bone jarring against the ground before I realized one of my legs had buckled. Across the field Atem looked livid and a bit paler than he had before as he watched me, though of course I still had him beat there.

I clenched my jaw and whatever else I had left to clench and gritted the sentences out between my teeth. "Hehbah, mehshahree-ankh, neb-em-ta."

"Be silent!" He thundered again, ridiculous hair seeming to stand on end and tremble in rage as I carefully worked my way through the syllables of the last sentence. I wasn't stopping now, even as everything flashed black for a moment. My breath came out unsteadily and darkness was creeping at the corner of my vision. I felt like I'd run a marathon.

The fuck was going on? If reading was supposed to be a lethal sport everyone in Domino except Wheeler would be dead by now. Had Pegasus set me up? Our partnership was beneficial to him, but maybe he figured since I was keen to go knocking on death's door he'd give me a little push through the threshold and snatch up KaibaCorp in the aftermath. That dirty rat was in for another reality-check when I got my hands on him!

"Heh'ga neu, nah-ss sha'ah ehn mehsoud. Sechem, mecherou' hehm-bah."

"I cannot believe you!" Atem was bellowing at me from across the room, sounding as though he was deep underwater. "To deny your past so stubbornly only to beckon it to you with open arms the moment it suits you!" I raised my head to look at him, not sure when I'd lowered it as my lungs burned with each inhalation. He was enraged in every sense of the word. His muscles strained as through it took conscious effort not to storm across the duel arena and throttle me, now that he could reach.

Figures it would take divine intervention to get him to finally shut up.

A horizontal beam of purple shadows drew itself in the air above our heads, hovering in place between the two of us. Like blood dripping from a wound, a second line of red light dribbled downward from the first before curling at the end into a tight spiral. The horizontal line split and opened.

It was an eye.

The crimson pupil constricted and dilated slightly as it focused in the room and then it turned on me expectantly, ignoring the Pharaoh as though he didn't exist. First Obelisk the Tormentor and now this; looks like he wasn't the only one could could summon 'gods'. That was sure to piss him off.

Personally, I hadn't thought the little chant would be so damn literal.

I swallowed between gasps and shouted the last line upward to the eye.

"To'khet ramshik nuut-hassat kimbek tel-sah shet!"

_The winner of this game returns to the living world!_

The eye blinked at me. It was impossible to tell if it had understood, or even heard. It was a blasted disembodied floating eye after all. It watched for a long moment before swirling in on itself until it was gone, leaving a face down card behind in its place. In its departure there was an eerie silence.

**Anubis**

The accursed white dragon screeched as the seal was broken.

The beast's hold on me and the blinding light that kept me from escaping its trap loosened as its body shattered outward into pieces. It had kept me broken and bound in this chamber of Seto Kaiba's soul room for what felt like an eternity. Its pestilent hold on me faded as it vanished into the depths of this hell and I ripped open the door of my prison. The knowledge that my jailer's death had not come from my own hands filled me with fury even as it aroused my curiosity. It would seem someone had interceded on my behalf, yet my benefactor had the wisdom not to make himself known.

Without enough life energy to manifest my own body I was but a half-made ghost, bound to Seto Kaiba once more. I emerged behind his eyes and studied the grounds upon which my third coming would now begin.

This place. It could not be real.

In the brevity of my second coming I had seen what had become of the modern world through the eyes of my witless host. The glory of gods and magic had been flushed away in a new age of machines that belched filth and noise. No longer did sand and stone tower above men to remind them of the weakness of their flesh, but instead glass and concrete forged a prison of body and soul. The bleakness of that world would be of little concern once I was unleashed upon it once more to sculpt my new era, yet instead of that sickly clamour I now beheld the palace of the Pharaoh of Egypt - a lingering echo of an age long buried by time. I knew it to be an illusion and swiftly drew an understanding of this place like blood from a wound.

This was not Egypt. This was not even the living world. It was the imperfect memories of a boy king - a bastardization unique to his own mind. His afterlife was as individual to him as his own scripture and just as easily recognized. People and places crashed against each other in an ugly discordance of misremembered memories and the newborn thoughts of a half-grown whelp.

To be trapped here would be little better than within Seto Kaiba's soul room, but the boundary between the world of the living and that of the dead was not as impassable as the foolish priesthood thought to insist and such concerns were paltry to a sorcerer of my skill. Death was mine to command, as was only befitting one who would claim the name of the God of Death for himself.

I was stirred from my thoughts, abruptly enraged by the familiar sound of impudent voices.

Seto Kaiba, and the Pharaoh's too.

Those insolent, impudent curs. Those scheming, scuttling wretches. How fateful that the architects of my imprisonment should be the first voices I was to hear upon my return to power. With each word they spoke my hatred swelled tenfold. How dare those worms who were fit only to writhe in the dirt beneath my boot scheme their way to defeating me. I would not remain beaten and humiliated by the likes of children with handfuls of playing cards!

Yes, the memory of tasting that last defeat was vile upon my tongue. The Pharaoh had bested me, but he had not acted alone. Seto Kaiba had aided him, if only by demonstrating himself to be an unreliable and rebellious puppet. Denying my commands in pursuit of his own petty perfectionism had proven to be beginning of my undoing. In his palatable lust to crush the Pharaoh with his own God Cards he had ignored my whispers and had forced me to prematurely emerge from his body to finish the job myself. I needed no pathetic shell of a boy to seize victory, yet he had been a useful tool. It was by this acknowledgement alone that I had severed a sliver of my soul and seeded it deep within his own to lie dormant as a safeguard, lest the Pharaoh conspire a way to turn the tides.

I had watched silently through my host's eyes while the Pharaoh and his entourage battled my true self; as he assumed the form of the great jackal and then I, just like he, was silenced and sealed by their damned white dragon in the aftermath!

Sealed powerless within Seto Kaiba's soul room by that dragon until the end of his life was to be my fate, yet it seemed destiny had favored me once more. It continued to so do as I grew attentive to Pharaoh's words and the poorly pronounced incantation Seto Kaiba was casting upon them.

" _Preside as audience, upon this, my conflict of ceremony."_

_"Whatever you're doing stop it now, Kaiba!"_

_"Officiate my terms and grant my wish!"_

_"Be silent!"_

_"The winner of this game returns to the living world!_

Mwhahahahaha!

How the meddlesome rat had come to be in the Pharaoh's afterlife did not matter! It was truly the will of the Gods that I should be searching for a way to leave this world in the same moment my hapless host was casting a spell to secure a return to life. By his terms all it would take was the Pharaoh's defeat! A goal I relished!

My spirit strode through the depths of my host's soul room, ripping open and letting loose whatever other evils he had sought to imprison in here as he had me. I was unimpressed that despite Seto Kaiba's lofty man-made magics it seemed he as was only capable of perceiving anything was amiss as I came close enough to the surface of his mind to possess his limbs. A mere wretch of a sorcerer. He turned sharply to glare behind him as I ghosted my essence across his senses. It was both practical and poetic to take this body. The reincarnation of the same body that my traitorous co-conspirator, Anknadin, had been so eager to see sit upon the throne of Egypt that he had betrayed me to assure it.

Pale hands with bony knuckles and not a single callus or blemish stretched out in front of me as I flexed Seto Kaiba's fingers.

He noticed this small manipulation and straightened out the digits immediately. His petulance was as amusing as it was worthless. This host had no training for sustaining conventional sorcery, yet he had much fresh grief and anger and bitterness; fertile dark emotions from which to regrow the base of my dark magic. He would come to regret his part in the destruction of my Pyramid of Light once I took his whole soul in recompense. I laughed at him, tapping into every damaged, despairing feeling at his core and stirring it into a tool of my own retribution.

With the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon vanquished this was all I would need to set into motion the third coming of Anubis, Lord of the Dead. I would have my revenge and I would not be denied again.

**Kaiba**

I commanded the face down card to activate through my neural uplink and it refused. The giant eye had looked flashy but after adding itself to the field it had did absolutely nothing except take up space. I guess that figured since it was the result of one of Pegasus's schemes. It floated off to one side completely useless to me. I didn't care, so long as it did what it was supposed to it could hover over there all the live-long day.

"Well, that was anticlimactic." I mocked.

I felt weird. My migraine was getting worse. I was starting to feel nauseous and irritated - like something was crawling around under my skin.

The Pharaoh glared daggers at me. Guess brightening the mood wasn't going to happen. Not like that had ever been my specialty anyway. My specialty was **crushing my enemies into dust** and it was time to time to get back to doing what I was best at.

"Kaiba!" His voice was irritated and chiding and even worse had this undercurrent of concern running through it. "What have you done?"

I smirked at him. "Oh you'll see, Pharaoh. Now, shut up and call your attack again. It's time to finish this duel."

He scowled back at me. "You belligerent oaf! Something is wrong here!" Guess his ancient Egyptian spidey senses were telling him something was up but couldn't nail down just what. Whatever! I'd started this so I'd finish it! "I demand you tell me."

"Never!" **"Never!"** I spat, wincing as the lights in the room throbbed in time with my headache. The less he knew the better until our duel was done and he was back in the real world.

"Whatever you have done it has gone awry. Tell me. I will help you!" He pressed, his tone wavering between pitiful concern and a simmering fury.

Him, help me? Please. If he had any idea what I was trying to do then he wouldn't even offer it. Hell, once he found out what I'd done he'd probably never even look at me again.

"I don't need your help. Save it for someone who cares" I mocked. All of his anger was better than a single speck of his worry and besides that it felt good to be the one making all the smug pronouncements for once. "Now pick a lane Pharaoh, either get angry or shut up because I don't need your concern!" What I needed was for him to finish this duel.

My fingers flexed in anticipation of my next turn, bending the holographic projections of the cards in my hand. I hadn't meant them to do that. It took actual effort to uncoil them, they felt strangely numb.

**Tell him. Behold his expression as he learns of his fate.**

"You really have no idea what I just did, do you?" I taunted, enjoying the way his eyes narrowed at me and his eyebrows arched. "Thanks to me, the winner of this little duel will be returning to the real world." I paused for effect, watching the implication of that sink in and his expression turn dire as a thunderstorm. "You're welcome." I added, smirking.

All signs of comradery flew the coup as the Pharaoh's whole body tensed with rage. "This is how you plan to finally beat me? To force me into conceding?" Actually no, though I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't occurred to me - but winning that way wouldn't have counted for anything.

"Your actions are beyond words! This defies even my wildest underestimation of you!" He glanced at his Duel Disk, the exact spot he'd need to place his hand on to surrender and forfeit the duel.

"Don't you dare!" I hissed. "What happened to 'I've never backed down from a challenge, Kaiba, and I'm not starting now" I jeered, I didn't know if he'd recall those words. His eyes narrowed as he gritted his teeth; looks like he did. The last time he'd spoken them to me we'd been at the top of Pegasus's castle and I'd been one step away from going over the edge. His answer then had been to condemn me to death. I'd have done the same had the roles been reversed.

Wonder what it was going to be this time.

**Mwhaha.**

A deep laugh set my teeth on edge. It was like all the noise in the world was being incrementally sucked up into a vacuum, yet this mocking bullshit was as clear as surround sound. The hell was it coming from?

It didn't matter.

I wouldn't let it distract me!

"Call your attack, **my Pharaoh."** I pressed.

He looked at me strangely, his pained sneer turning suspicious and calculating. "I pass." He growled through his teeth. For once he looked like he was in just as much agony as I was.

"Then it's my turn." I drew Enhanced Counter. Funny. One turn earlier and he would have won but with this card I could actually come out the victor now. It didn't matter any more. I'd used Pegasus's trick and the damage was done but now I knew all it would have taken was one extra turn and then I could have won the right way, the only way that mattered, by pulverizing him with my dragon **and plung** **ing** **a dagger through his chest.**

**I could do it still.** **Just like he had done to me!** A wound for a wound. **A life for a life**.

As if. Winning like that would be meaningless now, since I'd had to cheat to buy the extra turn.

"I pass too." I grunted.

"What game are you playing?" The Pharaoh demanded as he drew, swiping the card from the holographic generator. He didn't even bother glancing at it, in fact he didn't take his eyes off me for a single second.

"A waiting game, apparently." I snapped back. "Call your Magician's attack."

He looked livid. Guess he was expecting me to finish him now that he'd given up the fight. Sucks to be him because that hadn't ever been my goal – this deck was designed to do one thing, to force only one outcome… But I needed him to attack me first. This couldn't end until he played it out. Maybe it was time to stop pushing buttons **and destroy him.**

"Atem."

I'd never used his name before. It felt strange to say it out loud.

I commanded the full intensity of his attention instantly, his blood red eyes meeting mine like lasers. I didn't bother to shout anymore – riling him up hadn't worked out and wouldn't help me if he was just going to keep passing turns. I needed him to do this. Needed it so badly, to feel relief from the cosmic toothache he'd given me – this dull constant aching irritation.

"I need this done" I simply told him. He was the tooth that I needed pulled.

**Bury his body just as he buried your pride! Cut a scar so deep that it bleeds him dry!**

That crimson stare shifted, pinched eyes and furrowed brow loosening up a bit. "So make your move." I finished with. He didn't move or breathe or even blink for what felt like an age and then almost imperceptibly he nodded. His tone was level and calm once more.

"Very well, Kaiba. I trust you."

I wished he hadn't said that because he was going to regret it.

**Finish it, finish this pathetic game and then rip out his spine!** **Better yet. I shall finish it for you!**

Wait. What?

I'd let the other murderous whispers of the last few minutes go by unchecked since they hadn't been all that foreign. I had a fair share of darker impulses and there was a part of me that would never get rid of them completely - Gozaburo had seen to that - but that last one was definitely alien. I'd been through this enough times before to notice when someone was trying to put thoughts in my head. This was more literal than I was used to.

_"Identify yourself!"_ I snapped back at the voice that was most definitely echoing around my own skull. It sounded familiar. I wanted him to confirm it though.

**Witless mortal maggot. Are you so foolish not to recognize my presence?**

"Hn!" A searing pain in my head gave me the worst migraine of my life. My brain was on fire. It felt like there was a hand squeezing it tighter and tighter and tighter. Was I having a stroke?

**Mwhahahaha! No, whelp. This will be much much worse for you than that.**

My stomach clenched as bile rushed up into my mouth. I swallowed it back down. It tasted rancid.

**Feel honored to once more be host to Anubis, Lord of the Dead.**

Oof, this guy again.

The Pharaoh was silently studying me so of course he must have caught my little internal monologue. It was probably a weird pause to him.

"Tch! Get on with it then." I snapped at him, fighting back the urge to flinch or gag as something deep down inside of me turned putrid. It was like every agonizing year, like every 'lesson' Gozaburo had ever taught me had been combined into a crash course and forced back down my throat as one festering lump. The feeling sank down to the pit of my stomach like a lead weight.

"Alright." He nodded to me, his tone level and focused with none of his earlier outrage. "Here I go, Kaiba."

"Good." I struggled out. Convincing him was a relief, despite the gross feeling his 'trust' in me elicited. My uninvited guest was getting too insistent for comfort. I could feel him poking holes in my brain, opening up doors and moving around the furniture. My head was gonna explode if this kept up.

The Pharaoh turned to his Dark Magician with a frown. There were no grand poses or boisterous attack announcements this time. Instead he gave his monster a simple silent nod. The Magician responded instantly, not bothering with any of the baton twirling or lousy showmanship – just thrusting its hand outward as it launched its Dark Magic Attack.

My fingers darted to Enhanced Counter without my permission. It took conscious effort to pull them away.

**Crush him!**

"I activate Green Medicine." I roared, shouting over the voice in my head.

The card had been released last month so it was hardly new, but since dead kings didn't keep up with current events I explained how it worked out loud. "Green Medicine enables me to sacrifice a monster on my side of the field to boost both of our life points by the value of its attack points for one turn." This was it. I'd played the whole damn game **like a coward** hording life points for just this one turn. I scowled and forced myself to nod to my Red-Eyes, the dragon's head dipping dutifully in reply as it was sacrificed away to restore both of our life points to three thousand five hundred.

"Kaiba. What are you doing!"

**"Simpering fool!"**

"Now I activate my trap card." I announced, my hoarse shout barely managing to eclipse Anubis's own. "Ring of Destruction! Using this card, we both take damage to our life points equal to the attack power of your 'roided up Dark Magician-"

Forcing a tie was vile. I felt physically sick - but by the rules of Duel Monsters a tie was a victory for both sides.

"-And that drops both of us to zero simultaneously!"

This way we could duel again in the real world and really sort this once and for all without time constraints or interruptions.

If he was so desperate to skip back off to the afterlife when I'd finished with him then **I would kill him myself!** I'm sure there was one of those KC-branded white revolvers from the old KaibaCorp kicking around in a briefcase somewhere that could get the job done.

The life point counter obliged me and my headache pulsed in time to the number counter as the digits reached zero.

The face down card I'd 'conjured' into existence still levitated off to the side face down and that surprised me. It should have either activated by now. The holograms began to slip away as they were programmed to do at the end of a duel but then stopped and each played their 'remove from play' animation instead. It had to be a bug with the new Duel Disks. I'd fix it once we were both back in the real world.

I pushed up against the floor to stand straight. Every muscle in my legs strained at the effort.

"KAIBA!" I didn't even have time to react to the blow.

The Pharaoh charged across the distance between us to punch me in the face so hard it staggered me back to the floor. He caught me off-guard. I'd never really though of him as a 'punch you in the face' sort of guy.

He radiated anger as a near physical aura as I caught my footing and glanced back at him, holding my jaw. I tasted iron. My teeth had cut open my cheek. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, not surprised by the streak of blood but grossed out by the trail of thick black sludge that was mixed in with it. That wasn't normal, but I didn't have time to deal with it if the Pharaoh wanted to settle this with fists. I glanced at Atem through narrow eyes, barely able to see him somehow. Far from being poised for a punch-up, he was stood spine stiff and shaking with fury. He looked like he was going to detonate.

"A tie may be considered a win for both sides in Duel Monsters, but it's a loss here!" The Pharaoh bellowed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Atem**

In a card game thousands of years into the future, dueling was a hobby. Here in this world magicians had battled not trading cards, but real monsters. A loss was a death - the sorcerer ripped apart by enemy behemoths or their soul exhausted beyond repair and a tie was the death of both combatants. It seemed Kaiba had ignored that in his petty crusade for revenge.

"You stubborn, arrogant -" I was shouting at him but Kaiba wasn't listening. He knelt stiff and still in front of me panting slightly with eyes blankly staring at nothing, processing information like one of his computers. He gritted his teeth, raised a hand to his temple and winced. Willful ignorance aside, even he should have known better than this! "-fool. You haven't changed at all!"

Earlier that had been a fond observation, now it was as damning an accusation as my tone could make it. "Once again you've spat your life in the face of the Gods and this time they have finally grown tired of your persistent recklessness!"

Kaiba had never been hesitant about getting what he wanted, but to go to this length. To try to forcibly eject me from my own paradise. I almost wished there was some shadowy manipulator pulling his strings and compelling this wanton foolishness but I could taste that this was a plot of his own shortsighted creation.

"You have abused my trust and our friendship!"

When he'd started the spell I had been shamefully curious. To have Kaiba here in my world, speaking in my tongue without hesitation or manipulation, then only to realize that the words he was speaking were shielded from my understanding. That stoked my rage. It was a fire that burned only hotter as the belligerent fool actually managed to successfully summon whatever it was he was beseeching.

"And for what?" I raged. "To steal me from my own afterlife?"

Like shouting over a sandstorm, it was impossible to tell if Kaiba was hearing me until he grimaced faintly at my last words. It seemed that was exactly what he'd planned!

"You're blind to everything but your own selfish desires!" The tirade gave me focus. A muscle jumped in his now-bruised cheek and very slowly his dazed stare drifted across the room to meet mine. "I vow to you here and now, I will never forgive this." His pupils constricted strangely at those words even as he wearily kept my gaze, as though resigning himself to the fate of listening to me. Was I just another obligation to be met to him!

He resembled Seto in this moment, kneeling in front of me with his head bowed slightly just as my priest had done earlier in the day. Unlike Seto I found the sight of Kaiba in the same position slightly repellent, though he certainly deserved my words. He had dug his own grave and matched headlong into it. Again!

"Get up, Kaiba." I demanded, closing my hand around his left arm and wrenching him back onto his feet. Yugi's body had strength, but it was the thready brawn of a young man who did not participate in many sports. Here my body was my own and I could man-handle Kaiba without any difficulty. I ignored the flinch of Kaiba's muscles and his hiss of breath as I tightened my grip on him.

Though the duel had ended in a draw, we both knew this was no victory and I wouldn't allow him the luxury of one of his post-defeat conniptions. There was no way Seto Kaiba would ever accept a tie. Trying to force one was utterly contrary to every personal philosophy he had ever angrily spat at me across the battlefield that it had shielded his strategy from my suspicions. Kaiba was a warrior and I had never considered him possible of aiming for anything less than a total victory.

He grunted as I pulled on him and stood staring dully at his arm where I held it. He swallowed thickly, grimacing as he did so. I was surprised he had yet to open his mouth and spill inane words into the air to defend against my reprimand or the pride lost from this ridiculous farce. Either he thought to wear his silence like an armor, or had nothing to say for himself. It hardly mattered. I was pleased that he knew to keep to himself for once and if the planets were in alignment, snow fell thick upon the desert and the sun was rising in the west, perhaps there was hope that his silence reflected contrition.

"You dueled so differently today I made the mistake of thinking you'd grown, but I you've proven me wrong." I announced without taking my eyes away from his. "This time you thought you could overpower me by aiming _not_ to win?". I shook my head in frustration. Why could he not get this right? Time and again I had watched Kaiba struggle and persevere only to make the same mistakes over and over. "Am I right to assume you have no intention of apologizing?" I demanded.

His mouth opened once more but he said nothing and closed it again, quickly covering it with his hand. I had thought Kaiba was looking pale before but with every second more color leached out of his complexion. Casting a spell of such magnitude without a Millennium Item or any training whatsoever was bound to have consequences. Just what had he done to himself? I doubted even Kaiba knew fully and he didn't seem capable of speech right now. Instead he staggered slightly and tried to snatch his arm out of my grasp so I switched my grip to his wrist instead. I could feel the nervous pounding of his pulse beneath the pads of my fingers which didn't feel right.

"I-" He began, before snapping his lips shut and turning his face away. "Get off me." He slurred. He tried once more to free himself and put distance between us, the movement this time jerky and uncoordinated. I frowned. Kaiba's movements were rarely anything other than composed.

"Kaiba?" I questioned, irritated and cautious.

He leaned his head forward slightly to shield his eyes beneath his hair. With one hand sealed over his mouth he used the other to push me away from him as he bent double and silently retched.

"What the-" I stepped backwards, opening up the distance between us.

Kaiba pressed both of his hands to his mouth with enough pressure to turn his knuckles white as his body convulsed in another dry heave. And another. And another.

His sudden sickness caught me off guard, drying out the rest of the furious words in my throat like a puddle beneath the desert sun and I froze, caught between conflicting instincts in an unfamiliar situation. Illness or injury I had always left to Yugi to field. Should I approach, or leave Kaiba be? I could hardly imagine he'd appreciate me witnessing this. He took a gasping breath between his gags and grunted or mumbled something I couldn't hear as he shied away from me.

I could sense it now. Whatever he had evoked, it had tapped into the life energy of his body to corrupt it to some nefarious end.

A strangled groan was the only warning given before finally he leaned down to brace his hands against his knees and vomited in earnest, a pool of dark black sludge splattering onto the floor between Kaiba's feet and a dribble of it oozing down his chin.

The puddle of grime stank of rot and grave soil. I recognized this particular strain of dark sorcery immediately.

I covered my nose to shield it from the stench of decay as Kaiba's body straightened, unfettered hate leering back at me from behind Kaiba's eyes. The quaking of his body released and his lips cut into a sadistic grin. A malicious laughter slowly bubbled from his mouth with a few more streams of thick tar.

"You have interfered with my plans for the last time." He muttered to himself before laughing loudly.

My new opponent wasted no time in pressing the momentary advantage of my shock. A dripping black knife both solid and liquid rushed upwards from the sludge Kaiba's body had expelled and was crushed in the grip of his hand.

"Watch out!"

In a whirl of deep blue my High Priest lunged forward from the throne room shadows to repel the strike. His dagger collided against my attacker's - slicing through the necrotic blade with a slick wet noise to disarm Kaiba's body as the magical weapon parted and splattered back onto the floor to rejoin the rest of the pool.

His smirk was as sharp and menacing as his blade had been. No doubt it reflected the depth of his desire to cut me down and spill my blood. He pulled Kaiba's face into a mad, hellish grin, the expression little more than a bearing of perfect white teeth now stained gray by gore. In tandem Seto and I jumped backwards to put distance between us and our foe, very much treating him like the jackal at bay he so resembled.

"Anubis." I noted.

At our last meeting when I had battled him through Yugi's body my memories had still escaped me, now my recollection of the fallen priest was as sharp and accurate as an arrowhead. This was no minor villain. How he was here now I didn't know, though most likely the result of whatever foolishness Kaiba had set in motion. It mattered little; I would not allow the sorcerer control of his body.

"Your timing is as precise as ever." I noted as I turned to my defender. I hadn't even noticed my High Priest return to the room but in retrospect his reappearance was inevitable. I should have anticipated that ordering him to leave so that I could duel Kaiba in private was an imperfect strategy. My wish would only be observed for as long as it took Seto to grow impatient and slip back into the throne room unseen.

Still locked in the pose of his last riposte Seto stared wide-eyed at Kaiba as dark tar oozed from his lips. The whites of Seto's eyes gleamed brightly in the fading daylight as he beheld his reincarnation. He looked panicked. "What is the meaning of this? This was not meant to happen!" He shouted at Kaiba's body angrily, as though upset with his lookalike for Anubis's possession. Kaiba's captured face eased into a foul sneer, though my own grew tight with suspicion at the vague implication in Seto's words.

"So it is you who destroyed the White Dragon that bound me then, is it then priest?" Anubis laughed deeply and terribly. Two voices echoed with each coarse bark, Anubis's growing in volume as Kaiba's receded into the background. "You have my thanks."

"You did what?!" I demanded, the volume of my voice echoing around the room. Seto gritted his teeth against my fury.

The Gods were truly testing me today to poise me against not only Kaiba's wanton abuse of magic, but now Seto's too! They were certainly not identical but it seemed in this both their thoughts and poor intentions had aligned perfectly! To calamitous ill-effect no less!

"Why have you done this? Tell me!" I commanded. Unlike Kaiba who was ever eager to face my ire and defy it Seto knew better and complied quickly with harsh chipped words.

"To free Kisara. I could not allow her to remain his slave!" He bit out, glaring at Kaiba's body resentfully.

That's what this was about? Their dragon? "She is no 'slave'." I parried back quickly. "She serves Kaiba willingly, and the choice to do so is hers to make."

The details of Anubis's reappearance fell into place. I had sealed him before with the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon. Seto must have unwittingly dispelled the binding in attempting to 'free' her spirit from Kaiba's.

"Pardon me, Pharaoh." Seto announced with conviction through narrowed eyes, prideful as ever but clearly finding no pleasure in my discontent. "This was not my intent."

"We'll speak at length of this later." I decreed as I spared Seto a final reprimanding look. His intentions had hardly been benign but he couldn't have known that this would occur in the aftermath. "However, we shall banish Anubis again here and now." I added shortly, locking my sights on our opponent. Anubis returned my glare, abruptly twisting Kaiba's face into an ever-more mad mask of itself.

"I think not." He chuckled, the sound dark and threatening.

"Anubis, you-" my High Priest's soon-to-be taunting reply was cut off as he yelled out "-Hrngh!"

In a flash of necrotic filth a massive claw of living tar sprung forth and wrapped itself around Seto's head and face in a vice-like grip. My High Priest's body went rigid and convulsed faintly as the oozing black construct easily snatched him off of his feet to hold him aloft in the air as though he were weightless. With a forward thrust of Kaiba's hand Seto was blasted backwards by the grim talon, the heavy sludge throwing him against the wall like a child's plaything. There was a loud crack as his head jarred worryingly against the wall to render him unconscious, a smear of his blood staining the stones as he slid down to fold onto the floor.

"Seto!" I called out.

He didn't stir. It seemed he had been removed from play and at the sight Anubis's mocking snickering began anew.

"Enough of his prattle." The dark sorcerer clenched and loosened Kaiba's fists, testing the muscles of his hands before experimentally flexing his host's arms. "Once more destiny bids us to do battle, my Pharaoh." He scoffed as the stolen biceps tensed and relaxed at his command. "Pathetic." He commented to himself, or perhaps Kaiba. "Yet I will make do for the chance to bury you with the rest of the worms!"

Anubis had made a grave error of judgment in returning. I would put him in his place once more! "Kaiba!" I shouted as Anubis chortled "Awaken and cast out this invader."

Anubis's grim chuckle exploded into a scornful laugh, echoing around my throne room in a malevolent mockery. Abruptly his stolen eyes slid across the room, as though listening to something out of sight. It bolstered me to see the tiny light on the neural uplink on the side of Kaiba's skull was flickering unbidden, as though about to play a card.

Pulled onto the field by thought alone, Kaiba's mind willed a face down card between us.

"Good, don't allow Anubis to manipulate you!" I encouraged, now knowing my words were reaching my rival. "We will banish him together." Anubis may have temporarily gained possession of his body, but it seemed the neural link commanding the Duel Disk remained at Kaiba's command. Combined I had no doubt we would put a quick end to Anubis now that he was without the empowerment of the Pyramid of Light.

Anubis glowered at the Duel Disk on Kaiba's arm, unable to understand how to gain control of the device that answered Kaiba's call and snarled at the apparatus. "Arrogant little gnat-" The holographic cards still clenched in Kaiba's hand from our duel drew the sorcerer's contempt and with a careless lack of respect he threw them to the floor, the cards vanishing into a burst of blue light as Kaiba's Duel Disk registered his whole hand being discarded to the graveyard. "-reducing the glory of my sorcery to a mere card game once more." Anubis sneered. Empty of cards Kaiba's fingers twitched and flexed wildly before the sorcerer crushed them into sharp-knuckled fists. "For that I will enjoy slowly crushing your spirit all the more." He taunted, speaking either to me or Kaiba, or both. The feral blue leer snapped back to me, whatever unseen rebellion had been occurring in his moment of distraction appearing to be quashed as quickly as it had been mounted. "For now I have sealed him away just as you did me, my Pharaoh!" Anubis assured me. "He can hear you no longer!" He boasted.

I frowned and nodded to Anubis firmly, hoping that Kaiba was watching somewhere behind his eyes. "Leave it to me" I told him. "I'll defeat Anubis and return your body to you quickly."

"You underestimate my powers, my Pharaoh." Anubis contorted Kaiba's grin to be impossibly wider, his thirst for vengeance and blood shining in Kaiba's glare. "You may believe me crippled without the Pyramid of Light, but you are mistaken-" my foe barked, black spittle flying from his lips as fresh sludge welled up in the corners of his mouth "-for this body's very life force will serve my purposes just as well!" Rapidly building dark sorcery overwhelmed my senses with its malicious aura. Anubis threw Kaiba's arms out and the thick expulsion he had vomited across the tiles of my throne room magically exploded to life in a mass of slimy tendrils and rot.

"I believe you have met my Sphinxes before!" He jeered. The mound of writhing ooze parted, splitting down the middle like a Revival Jam and each reformed into bubbling, malformed bodies.

"Hgnh." I raised my hand to my mouth, not letting a single speck touch me behind the shelter of my cape. In our last battle the Pyramid of Light had acted akin to a Millennium Item – bolstering Anubis's magical powers – without it he this time he drew from Kaiba's own body, his host's skin becoming ashen and thin at it struggled to meet Anubis's demands for its power. Such a vile, dangerous sorcery! Kaiba's body would need to be liberated before Anubis squeezed the life from it.

Limited by the underdeveloped magic of his current vessel, Kaiba's stunted capacity for magic stifled the summoning of his two sphinxes. They had been remade into the form of Duel Monsters last time -graceful, strong and deadly- now instead the two dripped onto the floor as half-formed tar abominations festering in the center of the room and turning the air squalid and sour. Andro Sphinx's leonine head popped like a bubble and collapsed in on itself with a wet squelch as the bestial lower half of Sphinx Teleia attempted a step toward me and partially fell apart in a shower of grime.

Anubis scowled at his malformed servants and Kaiba's body began to shake as the sorcerer taxed it to its limits. "Curse this wretch!' He snarled, digging Kaiba's nails into his palms so deeply they sliced open.

Despite weakening his host Anubis's summoning set me at a loss for how to proceed. He needed to be banished before he did irreparable damage to Kaiba but my ability to do so was hindered. Kaiba's Virus Cannon had claimed the only spell cards I'd once held capable of performing such an exorcism and if I moved to use what remained of my deck to destroy the sorcerer with raw force I could very well do more harm than good to Kaiba's body.

My momentary hesitation gave Anubis the chance to press his advantage. "Sphinx Teleia – recover your true form by devouring the Pharaoh!" he ordered. The cat-shaped bile beast hungrily gurgled out a screech through it's melting jaw and pounced. It's liquid paw slammed a crushing blow toward me that shattered the stones beneath my feet. I dodged to the side, far more agile than these sickly monsters.

Yet their advanced state of decay it seemed had merits as well as flaws.

The monster's claw reformed in mid-strike as droplets of muck still flying through the air in an arc above me spirited themselves back into a single fetid mass. A second blow was levied toward me quicker than I could regain my footing from dodging the last. I narrowed my eyes quickly as a familiar spell blasted Sphinx Teleia backwards and away from me in an explosion of burning purple magic, causing her to scream in agonized fury. I turned and nodded to my comrades as a chorus of footfalls spirited them into the throne room, needing nothing else to recognize my Magician's timely intervention with Dark Magic Twin Burst. The writhing mass of Sphinx Teleia gurgled pitiably and then drained back into the floor as a festering puddle, temporarily defeated.

"Thank you, my friends." I nodded to Mana, Mahad and Isis as they sprinted to take position at my side.

Mahad inclined his head dutifully, trailing his gaze over Seto's prone body to assess him before turning his eyes upon our foe. Mana's aura was tense as she stood beside her master's. Her eyes looked bright as they peered at a chunk of rot that was sliding across the floor of my throne room toward her, her natural curiosity drawing her attention downward toward the unknown magical mixture like a moth to a flame. "What sort of magic is this?" she questioned.

"Necromancy." Mahad observed, his tone thick with distaste. "It is a forbidden art."

At Mahad's back Isis stood poised and cautious, one of her hands habitually darting to the space atop her clavicle. Her nose wrinkled as the odious smell of death permeated the surroundings."Forbidden?" Mana questioned, briefly glancing between the priest and priestess. Mahad's eyes only narrowed and he nodded to Isis, the two communicating a message that went unspoken. "Do not permit it to enter your body, lest you come under its sway." She warned, smoothing down the layers of her robe beneath the golden bands that pinched her waist. "Even the mightiest become mere thralls to Anubis's will if corrupted by such dark magic."

Mahad promptly raised his hand as Anubis's assault began anew, conjuring a mighty barrier of black magic around the four of us as a wave of necrotic mud exploded across my throne room. It splattered in wet lumps across the shadowy aegis that protected us. His swift conjuration of Black Illusion was as impressive as ever.

Without another word the three readied their stances in unison, preparing to assault Anubis at my order. Having my councilors at my side filled me with renewed determination, the stalwart solidarity of their friendship strengthening me just as my friends in Domino once had. It was time to finish this.

"Surrender and leave Kaiba's body, Anubis. You're outnumbered" I declared.

A little more black bile leaked out between Kaiba's teeth as Anubis gritted them like a vice in a foreboding malevolent smirk. His taunting grew in venom even as it decreased in volume. "Such matters not, for unlike you I am willing to reduce this mortal maggot to but a withering husk if I must." He stretched out Kaiba's arms once more, as though to beckon me into a deadly embrace. "Take your shot, Pharaoh" He invited in Kaiba's voice. "Slit my throat with your magic."

My teeth gritted at the familiar words. The underhanded pantomime aroused all of my ire, as did the very idea that he would dare raid Kaiba's memories.

Mahad and Isis exchanged glances, waiting for my signal to attack. I was struck silent by indecision, my drive to punish Anubis for his insulting performance breaking like a wave against the need to protect Kaiba's body from sustaining further harm.

He abandoned Kaiba's voice once more with a patronizing roar of laughter. "Mwhahaha. Now my sphinxes!"

The melted remains of Sphinx Teleia surged forward to splatter their full weight against Isis.

"Isis!" Mana squealed. Sprinting toward the priestess Mana planted her feet and with a swing of her arm volleyed the most powerful Dark Burning Attack I'd ever seen her conjure. The air crackled with her power as the orb swept though it to pull apart what little remained of Sphinx Teleia. From the corner of my eye I saw pride in his student warm Mahad's stern expression, touching his eyes despite the weight of our current battle. I was privileged to have the loyalty of my Magicians.

"Thank you, Mana." Isis replied with a demure smile. Mana twirled her staff in her hand and tossed a wink at us over her shoulder, "No problem, we've got this!"

"Think again." Anubis's dark voice interrupted. The flayed fragments of Sphinx Teleia scattered by Mana's attack gravitated toward each other at great speed and swirled together. There wasn't time to react. Isis pulled Mana against her in a protective embrace as the reformed sludge shot toward the two women as swiftly as striking snakes, sweeping the pair from their feet and covering their whole bodies with a thick layer of sludge as the living ooze pinned them to the wall of my throne room.

Beneath the layers Isis thrashed for a moment - the motion so contrary to her usual grace - before going limp.

"Mana! Isis!"

No! I wouldn't allow my friends to fall. My priests and priestess had waited thousands of years for me and I wouldn't allow anyone to take my friends away.

Mahad took a startled step towards them and then stilled; as my guardian he was unable to leave my side by the nature of his duties. He watched them struggle in place beneath the mass of filth with a tight expression on his face, caught between instinct and obligation. Mana was his beloved apprentice and I was coming to suspect he had feelings for Isis and she had the same feelings for him. It was subtle; muted beneath their dignity and poise and given away only by one lingering glance too many or one word too few. It was something I hadn't recalled noticing in life.

"Go. Help them" I bid him urgently. I didn't have much experience with romance outside of Yugi's feelings for Téa, but I could understand that this was of grave importance to Mahad. "I'll be fine." I assured him. Mahad's conflicted expression cleared and he nodded to me in gratitude.

Our combined lapse in focus gave Andro Sphinx his own window of opportunity; there was little more than a bluster of wind and rotting flesh as its unstable body rushed toward us, opening up into a blanket of necrotic filth to trap me.

"My Pharaoh!" Mahad shouted, pushing me away at the last moment given to be enveloped in my place. Immobilized in the heavy roll of the monster's body my Magician was dragged to the ground to lie immobile against the tiles and ooze. I sprinted to his side, digging my fingers into layer upon layer of decay to pull the muck away from Mahad's face, but the more I pulled free the quicker the remaining doubled-down to flood his nose and mouth.

I pulled my hands away, staring at my palms in dismay as the mixture fruitlessly oozed between my fingers. Mahad, Mana and Isis were now each unable to move and Seto was lying unconscious across the room. Once more I was alone and many lives hung in the balance; a situation so familiar it was beginning to chafe. I had thought the pattern would be broken once I reached this place but even here, in my afterlife was it my perpetual destiny to be left standing alone while my friends fell around me?

No. I didn't accept that.

I dismissed the idea even as my fist clenched and turned my eyes back on Kaiba's body as it quivered from the strain of Anubis's sorcery. My options may be few and there were no cards left in my deck that could banish Anubis from Kaiba's body but as Yugi had taught me, with faith in one's friends there was no such thing as fighting 'alone'.

This was far from over.

"Kaiba, hear me." I shouted, Anubis's eyes narrowing in mirth as I beseeched the owner of his body once more. "I cannot defeat him alone." I paused, searching the face of my rival for any indication he was hearing my words. "I need your help."

"Your thinking is wishful, my Pharaoh." Anubis's laughter turned to a smug self satisfaction. "My thrall serves only me now."

Seto Kaiba would tolerate being no ones 'thrall'. It was his very determination to prove such a fact that I was relying upon.

**Kaiba**

The headache was gone. So was the urge to keep throwing-up until I was inside out. After a second I couldn't remember why or even if I'd been feeling sick in the first place.

It was calm and quiet, beside the hum of recycled air filtering in the background. The universe stretched out in front of me in every direction, tiny pin pricks of light against the black void of space. Half these stars were probably already dead and I was just observing the distant echo of their life. That figured. Was I stargazing with Mokuba again? I turned my head to get a look at him, but he wasn't there. The details of my environment bled in around me. I was on the deck of my space station.

Of course I was; I hadn't gone anywhere.

The Millennium Puzzle hung suspended in the chamber in front of me, my computer rendering the solution that would piece it back together again in just under six hours. I smirked. So much for eight years, Yugi. The mechanical arm spun and pivoted, reorienting itself with each new puzzle piece in its steady grip, calculating in three hundred and sixty degree virtual space the exact transformations and translations required to slot it into position and successfully placing the piece. That made the progression counter crawl up another few percent. Good. At this rate I'd have my duel with the Pharaoh before the day was done.

I doubted he'd approve of being back in but that was just going to be too bad. He'd just have to suck it up and live it out a bit longer like all the rest of us.

Was that what had I been doing before this?

I couldn't remember. It had been important, I knew that much. This was abnormal. Usually I had too many thoughts, not too few. That wasn't the only thing that was weird here either. The emergency lights were on for some reason and some of the displays were sparking and flashing. The one to my right went black for a split second before rebooting like nothing had happened. Looked like a power surge. Someone in maintenance must have fucked up.

The console at the other end of the room had my work logs. They'd tell me whatever the hell was going here. I turned on my heel and began to walk away from the Puzzle, feeling a little more irritated with every step. It didn't matter that was 'empty', retreating from it still felt like a defeat even though it was incomplete, like the Pharaoh was somehow watching. Ridiculous. I squared my shoulders and marched back down the gantry but tossed a glare back at the chamber, just in case.

At the other side of the control room I jabbed my thumb against the fingerprint scanner to authenticated my identity, unlocking the work station. There were only two people in the entire world this station was designed to activate for, me and Mokuba. Where was he? Why couldn't I remember anything?

And why the hell was this here?

There on the console sat my Duel Monsters pendant. The same pendant I had very deliberately left behind on my bedside table at the mansion. Wordlessly I snatched it up, catching the latch to open it up enough to confirm it was mine. The photograph of Mokuba smiled at me and I snapped the locket shut again, holding it so tightly in my hand that the corners dug into my fingers. I slipped the pendant's cord around my neck. It fell back into place like it had never been missing.

It wasn't supposed to be up here. I'd left it behind on purpose.

Mokuba was growing out all of that kid stuff and had stopped wearing his so I'd stopped wearing mine. In the last few months he'd grown up a lot and I wanted to give him the space that had never been given to me. Hell, as I'd gotten older my adoptive father's choke-hold had only grown tighter in response. If cutting his hair and not wearing a necklace made my brother feel more mature then fine. It was a small price to pay. Even after sorting out all those thoughts my hand kept holding the locket. Having it back in its place against my chest felt normal, despite the sensation that something was wrong with this whole place.

Now my eyes knew what to expect I was easily able to pick out more of my own paraphernalia lurking in unusual places. The leather wallet containing a set of screwdrivers that I kept in my desk draw; the silver lighter with the KC logo engraved on the side that was lying around my office somewhere. Even my phone was here, lying casually on top of the environmental controls console. I'd left that in my locker back on the Earth's surface; the device had no right to be here. I picked it up, wondering if it would be as convincing a fake as the locket was. For all intensive purposes it looked just like the phone I'd left behind. It had the same white body and KaibaCorp. branded case, even the same hairline scratch in the gorilla glass screen from when I'd thrown it across my office after some moron gave the number to the marketing teams.

I collected up each of the objects, crushing them in my hands to test their rigidity as I did so. They felt real, but there was no way any of these things could actually be here.

_"Leave it to me._

What the-? I wheeled backward to stare at the Puzzle. It was still suspended silently in the reconstruction chamber; its completion hadn't raised even a single percent. It floated their, silently mocking me as I glared but it could go to hell, because I knew what I'd heard.

I paced the room, taking in every detail as I did so, examining every corner and console for some remote speaker or bullshit trick.

_"I'll_ _defeat Anubis and_ _return your body to you quickly!"_

"Get lost." I yelled back at the Pharaoh's voice. Where the hell was it coming from?

I snarled as I swiped at the security logs, each camera revealing nothing just as they rightly should, until one made me stop. I ran a diagnostic. It had to be a feed from the hologram suite because nothing else made any logical sense! The camera was on the Pharaoh's AI, but someone had updated the character model. It faced off against me, or what was clearly meant to be me and both of them were wearing the new Duel Disk prototypes that I'd been working on for my duel with the Pharaoh – top secret prototypes. Had the designs been leaked? Tch. Someone was definitely getting fired and when I caught the moron on the simulation crew who'd messed up my model to make it into some frothing psycho there was going to be the sort of intense disciplinary action that makes sure you not only never work for KaibaCorp again, but never work in the industry, Domino City or the whole damn country.

I deactivated power to the holographic projection suite, but the camera feed kept on rolling. "Damn it!" I slammed my fists against the console.

"BLU!" I snapped.

"Yes, Mr. Kaiba?" replied the space station's AI.

"Deactivate the Pharaoh simulation. And make it quick." I'd run out of patience. Up here was supposed to be completely secure - a one hundred percent controlled environment, free of distraction. Something being in here, moving my things around and corrupting my simulations was unacceptable!

"I can't do that, Mr. Kaiba." It replied. It better not be choosing that turn of phrase to be ironic.

"Don't get cute with me, why not?" I could always wipe BLU out, replace every piece of its circuitry and try again - this time for an AI that wasn't going to talk back or crack wise.

"Error: simulation not found." BLU replied simply. "There are no simulations currently active."

Even BLU was affected by whatever punk attempt at cyber espionage this was. "Fine. Try deactivating the Pharaoh simulation and then re-initializing it from the last back-up." I wouldn't need the Pharaoh simulation soon, not after I crushed the real thing in duel, but that didn't mean I'd let this modified version of it hang around my database taking up space.

"Back-up restored. Re-initializing now, Mr. Kaiba."

The light of my holograms traced the Pharaoh's form in the air before generating in the added volume and mass that made my holograms strong enough to touch - if you were careful. The Pharaoh's AI rendered into the room in front of me. The back-up was a success; its skin was the usual pale peach and clothing matched what I'd programmed for it based on Yugi's wardrobe. 'He' even had the audacity to look as confused as I felt. He glanced around, looking at everything but me. I hated that. I snapped my fingers in front of his face, drawing his attention my way like it was supposed to be. He frowned at that.

"I'm not a dog, Kaiba." He reprimanded. I felt my temper even out a little as his sparked up.

"Then stop looking around like a stupid puppy." He huffed at the indignity of that, hair seeming to somehow stand even more erect in irritation. Normalcy was refreshing.

Despite the mockery he craned his neck to get one final overview of the deck, eyes lingering on the half rebuilt Millennium Puzzle. "We're in your soul room." He noted, if you could call that a note.

I scoffed, loudly. 'Soul room'? Even the back-up was a mess. This had to be some sort of computer virus.

"We're on my space station." I corrected it, waiting to gauge its reaction for troubleshooting purposes. We'd run hundreds of duels here, this shouldn't be new to it.

The cyber Pharaoh smirked at me, contradicting my assertion with just a smug look.

"All of this is in your mind, Kaiba. Including me."

Great. Another self-aware AI gone mad. He strolled around like he was searching for something.

"I wonder why you've come here." He pondered out loud. I scoffed at that and he paused as his path brought him in front of my security monitor, the two simulations from before still fighting it out. The hologram turned to watch the screen in earnest like a movie premiere, almost just in time to see himself get beat. From the look of it the crazed version of me had the upper hand.

The artificial Pharaoh rounded on me in an instant. I crossed my arms tightly to squash the instinct to shove him out of my personal space at the abrupt movement. "Kaiba, your body has been possessed, that's why your mind is here" He declared. I rolled my eyes so hard they should have fallen out of the sockets.

"Possessed." I repeated. "Like by a ghost? Get real." I could hardly contain my dubiousness, or my boredom. Then again there were few people in the world more qualified to give a seminar on being a ghost than the Pharaoh. Too bad the AI version in front of me was completely made up of my own memories of him. It made all this banter purely self-indulgent, in a bad way.

"This is serious!" He barked. "That's what's real." He added, pointing a pale finger at the rogue security feed.

"As if."

I couldn't believe the bullshit that came out of his mouth sometimes. Most of the time. The fact that all this dialogue had to be coming from somewhere in my sub-conscious only made it more infuriating.

"Kaiba. Listen to me-" He chided, like I was an obnoxious little kid so I interrupted him like one.

"-This is just a stupid dream; you can get lost!" I assumed this was a dream. I couldn't explain it away as anything else.

"This is no 'dream'." He pressed, confident as ever. I could swear he was trying to sear me with that damned stare of his as the artificial eyes that I'd programmed locked onto mine with such intensity even I could almost believe they were real - that this Pharaoh was more than just a pale imitation of the real deal. It was certainly as relentless as the genuine article. "Why are you so unable to trust my word?" He demanded. "Friendship is in our cards, Kaiba, or do you deny those words now that it best suits you?"

I scowled at him for that. "Don't paraphrase me!"

His anger subsided into a muted victor's grin, like he'd scored a point. "So you don't deny it?"

I gritted my teeth. The bastard had baited me into another of his traps. "Of course I do!" I snarled back, unable to deal with his shear fucking audacity "We aren't 'friends', idiot!" He opened his mouth to argue but was interrupted by the other version of himself on the monitor.

" _Kaiba, hear me_ _. I cannot defeat_ _him_ _alone_ _."_ The darker skinned Pharaoh AI on the feed paused, staring so deeply at my rabid counterpart that it made the hairs on my neck stand on end. _"I_ _need your help_ _."_

"Tch. The Pharaoh, 'needing' my help?" There was no way that this could be real. I turned and taunted the hologram beside me. "Your case is becoming less credible by the second."

"Open your eyes. There's more at stake here than your pride." The cyber Pharaoh parried watching the screen as the Egyptian-textured version of the Pharaoh just stood there, confidently waiting while the freak version of me smirked and drooled all over himself.

"So I'm supposed to 'help' you beat me, again?" I snapped. No chance, Pharaoh.

"Yes."

The one word answer pissed me off, but somehow what he did next disarmed me.

The paler AI beside me turned to stare into my eyes again but this time all the blistering heat had been replaced with something else, something heavy and serious, like every single drop of his attention was one hundred percent fixated on me and just me for once – not divided up and split between me and Yugi and Wheeler or the rest of those dolts. This was the expression I'd been looking for, the one I'd wanted to see after I'd defeated the Pharaoh. Right now though this level of eye contact with him so close up felt uncomfortable. Overly intimate. I preferred our staring matches when there was a duel arena's worth of space between us, not when he was close enough to lean over and bite me.

"Tch!" I broke it off, muttering "Fine."

Whatever.

Accessing the Duel Disks that the simulations were using would only take a microscopic portion of effort and it wasn't like I hadn't 'helped' him out before. If that got the hologram to shut up then fine.

"Move aside." I demanded, cutting passed the cyber Pharaoh to sit down in the computer chair beside him. With only a thought I logged into the neural network that my custom-made Duel Disk units connected to, a holographic keyboard projecting as my neural uplink accessed the custom OS I'd written for them. My fingers flew across the menus as security barrier after security barrier hovered in front of me in glowing blue holograms.

"What are you going to do?" The Pharaoh hologram asked, bending slightly to peer over my shoulder as he leaned on my chair's armrest – clearly not caring about how closely that brought our faces together. Close enough that the Solid Vision projection of one of his bangs brushed against my cheek and made me scowl. Properly simulating his hair really had taken the longest time and even as the silky strand moved against my skin I wasn't totally satisfied with the result.

"Look here." I pointed at one of the holographic displays to my far side so he'd have to move his face out of my space. It worked at least – the Pharaoh's hologram straightened up and moved his hand to hold his chin as he thoughtfully looked over the rudimentary display of a left over duel. "What do you notice." I tested.

"Several cards from a previous duel are still on the field." My hologram replied without missing a beat. Of course it did – even though it was a fake I'd programmed its comprehension to match that of the actual Pharaoh after all.

"Right." I confirmed. "The duel should have finished since both players have zero Life Points, but according to this data the game never actually ended." I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms as I thought out loud. "It looks like a glitch, but I refuse to believe any version of me would ever show up to a duel against _you_ with faulty tech."

"Kaiba, I'm honored." The holographic Pharaoh remarked dryly.

"I don't remember programming you to be sarcastic." I deadpanned in reply. Why was it that every self-learning AI system I made decided the first thing it needed to teach itself was sarcasm.

"The 'why' isn't important right now." I continued before the hologram could come up with another annoying quip. "All that matters is that we can use the cards that are left to our advantage."

"How do you intend to do that?" The Pharaoh noted without pausing. I understood his confusion – the cards were all on what used to be my side of the field, which put them now under enemy control. That minor detail wasn't going to matter in a just a few seconds.

"Hnh. That's easy." I smirked. Stupidly simple too. The Pharaoh could keep the mastery of ancient Egyptian voodoo for himself because I had something better; while every duel used KaibaCorp Duel Disks and the Crystal Cloud Network I could rewrite the rules like a god. "I'm gonna manually override the duel parameters and merge our profiles together. That'll combine what's left of our decks."

I didn't like the idea of 'merging' us together - in fact I hated it. The idea of fusing my deck with his irritated me and left a sour taste in my mouth but practically speaking it was hardly any different from the countless times we'd polymerized our monsters together to assure a victory, and my leftover cards would be just the edge needed against the little magic show happening on the monitor. That was all the help from me the Pharaoh was gonna get.

Let's see the so called 'King of Games' play it out.

**Atem**

Kaiba's Duel Disk flared to life and mine answered it in kind. I smirked. There was no room for any doubt; Kaiba had decided to act.

It was the first time I had paid the golden Duel Disk on my own arm much attention since Anubis's resurgence, but apparently the Duel Disk itself had been far from inert.

The sphinxes summoned though Anubis's sorcery had gone unseen but it had recorded with keen accuracy the spells used by Mana and Mahad to come to my aid. Their blasts of magic were displayed before me, represented by the spell cards Dark Magic Twin Burst and Dark Burning Attack; so too was Mahad's defensive spell as the Black Illusion trap card. All three cards had been drawn straight from my deck, activated, and then promptly sent to the graveyard. It seemed the Duel Disk was intuiting what best matched it's dueling database to understand what was happening. It was a stubborn device, just like it's creator.

As both Duel Disks reactivated a shock of cyan and gold illuminated the room in tones that faded and cascaded into each other in a ribbon of light that gently undulated and merged. Holographic menus darted before us, opening and closing quicker than even the keenest eye could read. Login screens were conquered in invisible keystrokes and loading screens appeared and collapsed until Kaiba reached his goal. With a final invisible password entry and the depression of an unseen 'enter' key the menu flashed twice; voicing it's warning to all whom could see in crimson tones before vanishing as quickly as each of its predecessors had come and gone.

"Duel parameters updated." A demure female voice announced.

"What is this?" Anubis glowered, glaring for the first time on the device on his stolen arm as light spilled from it.

I knew exactly what it was Kaiba had in mind as the Duel Disks automatically cut and shuffled what remained of our decks into one, reorganizing our player profiles and fusing us together into single player. His proposed solution was simple to guess.

"Know this Anubis, your defeat comes from the hands of the very duelist whose body you have stolen!" I announced to him, pleased with my rival's innovative solution.

"Fool. No pitiful cards nor flashing child's plaything is threat to me!" The sorcerer spat back.

"Not on their own." I agreed, enjoying the way Kaiba's expression became furious and incredulous. Though Anubis still controlled him it was the first familiar look I'd seen on Kaiba's face since this began. "But while in your presence these are mere cards no longer!" I enjoyed watching his expression shift.

"Allow me to demonstrate-" I turned my attention to one of Kaiba's face down cards, bidding it to active for me "-by activating Kaiba's Spell Reproduction to call my Swords of Revealing Light back from the graveyard!" I smirked as the card obliged me and outstretched my hand, the card dutifully rendering as heavenly blades rained from the ceiling of my throne room to trap Anubis in place. The card was one of many spells Kaiba's Virus Cannon had sent to the graveyard – it felt almost like a quirk of fate to be reclaiming it this way.

"This cannot be!" Anubis spat as the glowing daggers fell around Kaiba's body to bind him in place. "-Andro Sphinx, Sphinx Teleia! To me!" Raw hatred leeched into Kaiba's eyes, turning them feral and furious as he called his monsters back to him, my breath catching with relief as their oozing bodies uncoiled and slid away from my fallen friends. Mana stirred slightly in Isis's arms, the priestess herself moaning softly and across the room Mahad's chest rose and fell in a slow but steady cadence. Even Seto's eyes seemed to actively dart behind his eyelids despite his head injury. For them to be alive and unharmed was more I had thought to wish for.

"I will be your death yet, my Pharaoh!" Anubis roared as the pair of melted monsters rejoined, melding together into a single stinking mound of gore and climbing up Kaiba's long legs and across his body to coat him like a second skin. The two fetid bodies met and swirled together across his chest - a sickly black jackal head of solid sludge bubbling out of the lump with a wet pop to protrude outward from Kaiba's body. It gurgled as its rotting maw snarled at me and gnashed at the air, sending a slurry of foulness scattering in every direction.

"You're wrong, Anubis." I assured him, feeling the thrill of impending victory as the jackal's head howled in furious anger and the coat of living tar across Kaiba's body writhed and sizzled wherever the lights of my Swords touched. "And I'll prove it, with Dark Spear!" I set my last card in my hand onto the field and thrust my arm into the air, my palm filling with the hefty weight of the Spear's hilt as the gleaming lance was remade by Kaiba's holograms. "Prepare yourself!" I warned Kaiba and Anubis both as I charged across the distance between us.

"I will not be defeated again!" The hastily erected barrier of necrotic magic did nothing to block me; my Dark Spear pierced through the sphinx's slimy skin to strike true at the newly formed jackal head and I plunged the weapon as deeply as I could into its straining throat in a single swift lunge.

"Maggots! Filth! Worms!" Anubis raged as the jackal head's anguished jaws flexed and strained to close around my lance to no avail.

"Finally, I'll use the very card placed face down by Seto Kaiba to banish you once more!" I had no doubt what his card was and my faith was justly rewarded. At my spoken command the card turned upward from the floor. "I activate Kaiba's Soul Release. Now, begone!"

The blue-skinned elfin woman swam though the air free of her card; her hair undulating as though caught on an invisible current. She glided toward us with her eyes firmly sealed closed and smiled gently at me as I focused all of my strength in keeping Anubis pinned in place at the end of my Spear.

"If I am to be defeated again-" He yelled, straining Kaiba's voice to a dull roar. "-then I will take this rebellious rat with me!"

I had forgotten just how deceptively strong Kaiba's body was. With a surge of strength Anubis wrenched one arm free of the Swords of Revealing Light that bound him. Kaiba's fingernails split from the savage force with which Anubis dug them into the equipment lining his suit and then wrenched it from his arm. The dislodged shell of Kaiba's technology flashed frantically as the wires connecting it to the unit around his neck were torn from their connectors.

"No. Stop!"

With a sizable snap the components were pulled apart. The device cooed softly as it powered down and the lines of energy that had been racing across Kaiba's suit dulled until all that was left of their light was the track marks sewn into his outfit.

"What have you done?!" By Kaiba's own omission that suit had been the only thing keeping him in this world. Without it Anubis would erase them both! The afterlife was no place for living souls.

"Mwhahaha" Anubis roared with laughter, the projection of the Soul Release spirit flickering and flashing as she floated down to him. Kaiba's Duel Disk must have been damaged in the carnage.

As her ethereal hand reached deeply into Kaiba's chest Anubis snared the remaining components scattered across Kaiba's neck and head, pulling each of the inert pieces away from his host's body and tossing them the floor. She leaned back to pull out the ghostly essence of Anubis as the final piece – the one that had crowned Kaiba's skull- was crushed beneath his boot with the strike of the only one of Kaiba's powerful legs that remained free of Shadow Spell's chains.

The sorcerer's phantom image thrashed in Soul Release's hold and was finally yanked free of Kaiba's body and dissipated, but the damage was done. My world was no longer kept at bay by Kaiba's suit. The black soot that had slowly been creeping across Kaiba's extremities exploded into a vortex of particles, massive holes appearing across the length of the duelist's form as his body was eaten away into non-existence.

"Kaiba!"

"The victory is mine, my Pharaoh!" Anubis thundered, his fading shout eclipsing my own as the goo encasing Kaiba's body blasting away from him in heavy spurts to splatter over the walls and floors of my throne room and Kaiba's body was erased before my eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Atem**

There were faint noises from across the room my priests began to stir and rise. I glanced across them, looking without seeing, finding my High Priest still lay motionless but barely registering the observation in my mind. Instead abject despair raced the length of my body and a heaviness weighed down on my shoulders, sinking deep through my flesh and into the marrow of my bones. My priests said that to die here in the afterlife was to be purged from existence all together. To simply be gone. Forever.

"...Kaiba." It didn't seem possible that someone so alive; so stubborn and tenacious, could suddenly no longer exist.

How could this honorless erasure be his end? Kaiba was a warrior. The definition of the word in my time varied greatly from in his but it was true nevertheless. He deserved much better fate than this! He deserved the right to face down whatever force was brave enough to try taking his life - eyes flashing and coat tails angrily whipping around him. The air around me grew thicker, a biting chill entering into it despite the desert heat and for hours or perhaps only minutes I could do nothing but stare at the place Kaiba had vanished from.

"You fool."

I settled onto the floor without noticing, neither kneeling nor sitting but somewhere in between and feeling an odd numbness wash over me as I continued staring at the floor tiles. The parts that weren't now covered it thick black muck continued to shine in the twilight, a pulsing light reflecting in their well-polished surfaces. Dimly I was aware that the light was a card activation prompt flashing on the display of my Duel Disk. The one Kaiba had made for me and our duel.

_"Unlike you, some of us don't have the time to spare waiting around for the afterlife to make us kings -_ _so consider this a gift from my kingdom to yours" He'd declared, sweeping out his arms with a flourish._

Raising my arm to try to glance at it was thoughtless and mechanical.

It was the card created by the spell Kaiba had cast, I noted to myself. It felt as though hours had passed since he cast it but in truth it could only have been minutes. I accepted the activation prompt, morbidly curious to see the no doubt ill-conceived result of Seto Kaiba's last reckless play.

Cards called into existence by Kaiba's Duel Disks appeared in a flare of light; blazing into being with the ferocity of the device's creator. Anubis's creations in contrast grew and had almost crept onto the battlefield in wet and fetid black lumps like rotting weeds. This card's summoning was neither. It materialized in a torrent of smoke above my head, drawing together in a whirl of miasma. Its features solidified and became clear as an enormous purple and red eye surrounded by a spiral of undulating smoke loomed over me. The Duel Disk on my arm flashed adding the newly revealed 'Eye of Osiris' to the Cards Played log. I knew every card in Duel Monsters, or I had done before leaving Yugi's world, so well that I was long passed needing to read their descriptions. The fact that I didn't recognize this card art outright made me squint closer at it, focusing on it with effort to make the foreign characters of the card's description settle and stay still. It was a curious one; a continuous effect trap card, not unlike the Pyramid of Light had been in it's Duel Monsters incarnation. It occupied neither side of the field and boasted an immunity to the effects of all other cards.

But it was the rest of the card description that stilled me.

"Players do not lose the Duel even if their Life Points become 0. For each time fatal damage is taken, place one Death Counter on the player. When there are three Death Counter on the player, destroy them." I read out loud from the card description. "But wait-" I spoke aloud. That wasn't all. While in effect all players became immune to Surrender, Deck Out and Game Loss. If that held true then by the magic of the card a player couldn't be removed from this dimension until three Death Counters were accrued and the duel was finished, with no exception.

"Which would mean -" I didn't finish my thought, instead I glanced back to Kaiba.

It took me a moment to accept exactly what it was that I was seeing as a first Death Counter was added to our team profile. The Duel Disk chirped at the addition but I couldn't look away from floor of my throne room as I watched a thin black thread of ash began smoldering around the last position of Kaiba's body. Quickly and steadily the thread grew into a stream and then a river of black particles, converging on the site right before my eyes. The decaying dust that had eaten him alive was no longer traveling away from the Kaiba's last position but back toward it with steady intent, the magical process that had flayed the particles from his body repeating in reverse and returning all the bits of him that had flown off to their original places. The implication made me stop short.

A silent breath that I did know I'd been holding in escaped me as Kaiba re-materialized in full, clearly himself again as Anubis's last lingering expression of violent fury shattered into a pained and exhausted relief as his body sagged.

"Kaiba?" I questioned, moving to his side while he staggered slightly. I was surprised he was managing to stay on his feet at all no matter how much he wavered and trembled. "Speak. Say something." I pressed, steadying him with a hand against his chest. The material of his shirt was notably soft. It made the quaking of the hard planes of his torso even more jarring.

"I need mouthwash." was his clipped reply. He was overly pale and there was a bright sheen of panic in his eyes but the retort reassured me despite the situation.

I exhaled though my nose, incensed by the liberties Anubis had taken with his body.

"Are you alright?" I demanded, smothering the note of worry that had tried to edge its way into my tone. There was no need for it, I reasoned. Kaiba had been in similar positions to this before and recovered - this would be no different. Though, I would ensure he grasped the full width and breadth of his error of judgment in casting a spell to summon forth the very God of the afterlife the moment the insolent idiot was fit to properly explain himself.

My question went unanswered as Kaiba stumbled and abruptly fell forward onto me. I caught him instinctively, supporting half of his body against my shoulder and bracing myself to stand strong under his weight. His muscles shivered as he tried to stand alone but floundered and ultimately resigned himself to continue using me as a support with a short hiss of aggravation. "You won, again." came the muttered reply, his droning tone dripping with sarcasm as his warm breath ghosted across my neck. With a bump of my shoulder I hitched him to lean against me more securely; he was heavy, but lighter than he looked.

I chose not to rise to his jeer because I wasn't sure that he was correct. Though our player profile now bore a single Death Counter this was far from over if the Eye of Osiris's card effect was to be believed.

"The Duel Disk begs to differ." The display hovered in gold at my height so I lifted up my arm to give Kaiba a better view as he leaned over my shoulder. His head lifted slowly as though weighing much more than it should and fatigued eyes focused on the Duel Disk logs, yet he still had to stoop a little to read them.

"What!" He barked, loudly, straight into my ear. I scowled at him for that but he was too fixated on the Duel Disk's readout of the Eye of Osiris to notice it. "That card's effect means the duel didn't end." I watched as Kaiba turned the thought over in his mind. I could feel the conclusion he reached was distasteful as I felt his body tense against mine. "Then you haven't won." He growled, suspicion laden in his tone. That's what I'd said, but it seemed pointless to goad him. Not while his movements were jerky and breathing slightly labored. There was blood in the beds of his nails and his fingers trembled as they attacked the Duel Disk for answers, hastily calling up the log of played cards and lingering in stony disbelief as they found a readout of the effects of The Eye of Osiris.

"You need to rest." I noted.

He looked gaunt and as pale as papyrus. The slight sunburn on his neck, his ruffled hair and the light sheen of sweat on his face made him look frayed around the edges in a manner I'd never seen before. Even his coat fell messily around him waves of heavy material, as though finally free to act as a normal garment should now its owner was no longer paying attention to it. The behavior was faintly disturbing. Tired shadows slept beneath his eyes and as surely as the tight fabric of his shirt clung to his pronounced abdominal and pectoral muscles, it also exposed the harsh ridges of his ribs as his parted where my hand held him steady. He looked weak. It wasn't a description Kaiba would approve of.

"Screw off!" Came his terse reply, snapped at me with all his remaining venom. Oddly this guileless hair-trigger response confirmed for me beyond a shadow of a doubt exactly how much he needed time to recover. "I'll rest when I'm dead" He sneered, pointedly adding a note of accusation into his tone for good measure. He turned to glare at me, watching for my response, his exhausted blue eyes were thirsty for me to meet his angry jab in kind.

"Enough." I told him, firmly. Kaiba had just come back from beyond the afterlife and I needed to bridle my rage if I was to deal with him.

"Tch." His eyes narrowed.

"I won't be lured into an argument with you." I added with finality. Denying him a fight would be difficult but I had confidence I could outlast him even as his fresh anger seemed to renew his strength.

"Since when?" He crossed his shaky arms over his chest, exhausted and hostile in equal measure. "The Duel's over Pharaoh and you've got no smug pronouncements about how much I've 'disappointed' you?" He challenged nastily, casting the word 'disappointment' in iron on his tongue. "How I've lost your precious 'trust'?" He scoffed. "You're losing your edge."

"Leave it alone." I told him, keeping my sentence short. Amid Anubis's appearance in aftermath of our tie I hadn't yet truly turned over Kaiba's actions in my mind but certainly I wouldn't let him escape his actions. The burdensome irritation of his actions hadn't completely left me, but I was determined to ignore it while other matters pressed more urgently.

It seemed however that Kaiba was unable to do the same.

"Just shout at me already and get it over with." He demanded, becoming increasingly more enraged with me for my lack of response.

Against my will my thoughts wandered back to his ill-conceived plan to abduct me from my own paradise and I scowled as righteous ire bubbled in my blood. Why? To what end? To be his captive and duel over and over again until he claimed a flawless victory over me? Could anyone be so petty? Yes, I reminded myself, Kaiba could be exactly that petty. His raw arrogance was beyond measure if he thought I would stand for that.

"Even had your plan succeeded, there would have been a reckoning beyond your imagination. I promise you that." I smirked mirthlessly.

Kaiba wanted my anger and I wouldn't permit him it. He gritted his teeth as my reply denied him and wordlessly glared at me in response. In his silence he forfeited his turn, so I pressed my advantage.

"What was all of this for, Kaiba? By your own account, you already have a simulated version of me to cut your teeth on." I reasoned, unable to keep my exasperation at bay. I wanted to know this, though I hadn't realized how badly until my question had left my lips.

He broke my gaze and glowered off to the side. It didn't surprise me that I received no answer. "Tell me." I commanded, only to be met with a scoff and a scowl.

Kaiba wasn't my High Priest – unlike Seto I couldn't draw words from his mouth by simply commanding him to speak. That was frustrating. It had been at least a week since I'd last reflexively search my mind for Yugi's but right now I wished for just a fraction of his patience as Kaiba deliberately wore mine thin.

"Or don't you know?" I demanded, knowing I had discovered the truth and was pressing down on a wound as Kaiba's fists clenched and he refused to answer.

**Sphinx Teleia**

With each fraction of this hideous body that slipped down her neck she became mine.

I relaxed her as soon as my control was strong enough, opening her throat, her eyes, flaring her nostrils to flood as much of 'me' into her body as possible. Such an inappropriate vessel. I didn't like her! I didn't like the upturn of her nose and her hair was dark and coarse and far too short for my tastes – but a body, any body, was better than crawling around in that disgusting form! What had the Master been thinking? Summoning us so poorly! It would not do! It would not do at all!

My new form came under my control fully and I prowled my host's thoughts and feelings, finding nothing of interest in this boring little shrew! How dull. How very dull!

"Isis!" A shrill voice chirped at me, stirring in the arms of my new body and flicking away some slivers of previous one with a feckless blast of magic. How I wished to screech at her for that! But that was not the way of this 'Isis' woman. The little magician clambered to her feet full of energy and turning to offer me her hand.

"Thank you, Mana" I replied demurely, so soft and gently it made me nauseous, or perhaps that was simply this body's usual state of being.

I allowed her to help me too my feet and brushed down my robes, inspecting my acquisition as I did so. Her hips were passable, and her breasts bountiful enough to fill her robes tightly but I simply could not overlook her horrible hair. It was like the tail of a mule.

"Are you alright, Isis?" The little mage questioned again. A desperation lurked beneath her tone that thrilled me. I did so love a despairing prey! Fearful flesh was the sweetest.

"Yes. I am unharmed." I replied, with a gentility that I could already feel press upon my nerves. Up keeping this deception would be tricky, and this little mage, well, she looked good enough to eat. Perhaps my hunger showed; she smiled back unsurely.

"I was able to erect a barrier between my body and it." I fibbed, ghosting my hand around to room to gesture to the remains of me that sat still and disconnected in heavy black lumps. The little learner's expression brightened and she dazzled a smile at me. I preferred her wild shock of hair and those succulent lips. Perhaps if I could catch her alone I might find a way to trade hosts. Her younger, softer body had great appeal, but the body of a fully grown woman was not without its advantages. This 'Isis' had a position as priestess which afforded me more privileges in her vessel. Perhaps I would use her up and then move on to the young Mana once I had enjoyed my fill.

"That is a relief to hear." agreed a male from across the room. Mahad's stern voice drifted across the room with none of the warmth the words suggested should be present. "I did the same." I glanced up at the magician who was this host's lover and instead found Andro Sphinx leering at me from behind his cool eyes. It seemed my lion-brained pest had copied my idea. How dull! He had no originality!

Mana's eyes lit as she saw her master was similarly 'unharmed'. I used her distraction to smirk at Andro Sphinx, the expression tugging on the muscles of this body's face with strain. Clearly a smile of any kind was beyond the norm of this boring woman. I relaxed her face as he glared back to me and then disregarded me completely. He nodded at Mana as she came bounding toward him with a flurry of excited affection. Calmly and carefully he placed his hands on her shoulders, nodding appropriately at the pauses in the string of noise that spilled out of the little mage's quick mouth.

He was convincing. It seemed Andro Sphinx had a greater talent for deception than myself. I had no patience for such trickery. My hunger welled too quickly to waste my time spinning such deceptions but he made for a convincing Mahad, based on my host's memories.

"How is Seto?" Came the Pharaoh's voice across the throne room as the young king remained anchored in place in his efforts to prop up the paler boy, this 'Seto Kaiba', that he had no so subtly been arguing with while we convalesced.

I exchanged a final glance with Andro Sphinx before volunteering to investigate. "I shall see."

His body lay apart from our own. I straightened my headdress and my host's sandals softly pattered across the floor as I sauntered to his position. The stain of the High Priest's blood looked fetching decorating the wall behind him and jostling his shoulder did nothing but make his pretty head flop to one side.

"He lives, but he will not wake." I answered the Pharaoh with well-acted neutrality.

Seto Kaiba scoffed at my use of the word 'lives' as he hung draped over the Pharaoh's shoulder like a human pelt.

"He requires a healer." I added, keeping my mirth from my voice.

"Allow me to send him to the healing chambers." Came Andro Sphinx's diligent tone through Mahad's mouth. He outstretched his hand in conjuration - two mischievous imps with malevolent grins bursting from twin summoning circles as his host's Delinquent Duo spell spirited them into the room. "Carry the High Priest to the healing chambers." He instructed them, the two small devils giggling to themselves manically before scurrying to the High Priest's ankles and shoulders to lift him. They held him only a few feet aloft from the floor and snickered to each other before complying to ferry the High Priest's body from the room. It would seem Andro Sphinx was already availing himself of the magician's spellcraft. That knowledge of the arcane arts would be a delectable tool to abuse.

"Don't forget his stupid hat." Seto Kaiba sneered with an attractive cruelty as the tall headdress fell from atop the High Priest's skull to the throne room floor.

"Kaiba." The Pharaoh reprimanded the boy leaning over him with nothing but his name. The difference in their heights made the sight so amusing!

It made me feel famished.

I enjoyed eating tall men. I enjoyed it greatly. Such lean meat and long crunchy bones to snap in my jaws. It was fortunate that my master had been cast out of that body by the Pharaoh's exorcism; now I might have a chance to taste the succulence of the body's flesh between my teeth. Yet, I would need to act quickly. He was weak for now and an easy prey but once he recovered he would pose a threat. I would have to deal with him promptly.

I ran my host's tongue over her teeth in anticipation and then retreated back into the depths of the priestess's tedious little mind to await my opportunity to strike.

**Atem**

Kaiba hastily righted himself and stepped away from me as Mana jogged toward us, reaching me first with Mahad and Isis following behind at a more sedate pace. "Pharaoh!" she chirped, throwing her arms around me in an energetic embrace. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

"Yes." I nodded and patted the apprentice on her back and still feeling ill at ease with the physical contact that once had been so normal to me. Since being reunited with my memories I could now recall a lifetime of sunny greetings to match the dawn and companionable embraces, but my more recent ghostly existence still created a certain 'cognitive dissonance' when it came to such things - an apt term I would have no knowledge of were it not for my time in the living world. Mana only hugged me tighter, feeling the stiffness of my embrace fade as I relaxed with her. "Thank you, Mana." I smiled at her. Mana nodded enthusiastically and pulled away, winking as her hair bounced in time with her fluid movements.

"Are you three alright?" I questioned, glancing to Mahad and Isis as they came to a stand still at my side.

"We're all okay too, Pharaoh." Mana confirmed for them breezily.

"I'm glad." I replied with a small smile to the three of them. Then I was compelled to frown as I glanced around my throne room; or rather its wrecked and ruined remains. The mud of Anubis's magic stained every wall and surface; dripping down the pillars and my throne with slick wet splattering sounds.

"What was that. An evil spirit?" Mana questioned, sensing without needing to be told that Kaiba was different from the opponent we had just faced and tilting her head to the side in confusion as she leaned toward him for a better look at the duelist. Kaiba only crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at her for the duration of her inspection.

"Anubis. He was once a priest but turned to dark sorcery." I explained as I cupped the Millennium Puzzle in my hands, frowning down at the treasure. "To compete with the Millennium Puzzle he created a powerful artifact named the Pyramid of Light."

"A foolish ambition." Mahad noted as he knelt before me, I suspected checking me over for injuries without wishing to be so overt about it.

Speaking of which.

Mahad's eyes followed mine as I cast them back to Kaiba. The magician stood up once more - I suspected at ease now that he had confirmed for himself I had escaped the battle unscathed - as I rounded on the other ambitious fool in our midst. It was time to discover the true depths of Kaiba's folly. I fixed Kaiba with a pointed look that he returned; instructing him without words to do as I bid him. I didn't have the patience to deal with his combativeness right now. "Show us the spell that you cast." I commanded.

I didn't need to elaborate. With an irritated 'Tch' Kaiba begrudgingly complied.

I heard the soft feedback noise of his lengthy fingers tapping something into a holographic keyboard and he branded a projection of whatever it was he had been reading into the air of the temple in glowing blue light. It appeared to be a photograph of part of an unfamiliar stone tablet, though it was hard to judge its full size and scope as Kaiba had single-minded cropped the image so that only the invocation itself was visible.

Isis stepped backwards warily as the display flickered into existence in front of her, one of her hands darting from massaging her temple to the space atop her clavicle out of habit. Slowly and experimentally she lifted her hand and her gentle fingers connected hesitantly with the screen. She pulled her hand back and stared at her fingers, brushing them against each other as though expecting to find some sort of dust left behind.

"What sort of magic is this?" She asked, aiming her mildly bewildered question towards Kaiba's sour face.

"It's not 'magic'. It's just light." Kaiba sneered, answering with chipped, hoarse words before glaring back at me. "Can we move this along or are you simpletons going to need the full tech demo?" I bristled at his comment. I expected the others to do so as well but looking across at my priests I was met with only confusion. Mana was frowning, trying to puzzle out the words. Mahad and Isis merely watched me, judging my reaction instead.

I had understood from the context and from knowing the taller duelist, but they did not.

While Kaiba could speak the language quite clearly, the phrase 'tech demo' didn't exist within our ancient Egyptian tongue and the words he had fallen back on as substitute were nonsensical when paired together. He'd also slurred them slightly. Even with the considerable force of his determination keeping him on his feet I doubted he'd last much longer.

I swept my arm towards the projected photograph once more, drawing their attention away from Kaiba's statement and back to the matter at hand. After a pause and an exchange of glances between my priests Isis took a step forward with a respectful inclination of her head. She began to trace the complicated hieroglyphics with her eyes.

"To speak these words aloud..." She began, and then hesitated "Is to name one's self equal to the Pharaoh and demand Osiris himself preside as audience over a ceremonial conflict."

Mahad nodded in agreement at her interpretation. "It demands the Foremost of the Westerners hear the priest's terms and officiate over their execution." His eyes trailed over my shoulder toward Kaiba and there was a note of emphasis in his voice as he voiced the word 'priest'. I suspect Mahad realized as I did that Kaiba was likely only able to cast this spell because he was Seto's reincarnation and that he had turned the echo of Seto's faith to his own heretical purpose without a second thought. "What terms did you choose?" the magician inquired with an air of reprimand.

Kaiba scoffed. "I said the winner gets to leave this damn place." He swept an arm down himself. "And instead of sending us both back to the real world it decided to bring back Anubis and strand me here with you freaks." He turned his head away from my the disbelieving stares of my priests. "Your 'God' is a liar."

"To name Osiris, the god of the afterlife 'a liar' while bound within the confines of that afterlife is not wise." Mahad warned sternly.

"Perhaps your performance of the incantation was poor, or an error was made." Isis added, her tone level and impassable.

"This isn't on me. I read the words perfectly!" Kaiba argued back, his tone mirroring the one he had once with Ishizu in days past, falling into that same rhythm. Isis didn't concede an inch beneath Kaiba's dark glower.

"Enough." I held my hand up for silence knowing my priests would comply but welcoming the surprise as Kaiba also angrily snapped his mouth shut at the gesture. "Anubis's return is unrelated." I concluded for them, though as Seto and Kaiba would always be bound to a single soul the error still lay on Kaiba's side of the field.

"You know something I don't?" Kaiba sneered, his eyes narrowing at me in suspicion. I returned his glare with one of my own but noticed Mahad also glance curiously my way in the periphery of my vision.

With a single shake of my head I dismissed his question. "All that matters now is winning the duel that's been started." I answered without a doubt. Rising to Kaiba's pettiness was beneath a Pharaoh but my tone still heated against his ill-temper.

"How do you plan on doing that?" Kaiba probed curtly. "In case you haven't noticed, our opponent is gone."

"No. The Eye of Osiris's effect makes it impossible for Anubis to be removed from this world." I parried. Not until our duel was completed; a fact that had saved Kaiba's very existence mere minutes ago. "He's still here, somewhere." I concluded with finality. I placed my finger against my chin, a clear picture of what was required of us forming in my mind. "We must oblige the Gods and find whatever remains of Anubis to finish this. That's how we'll fulfill the terms of the Eye of Osiris and return you to your world."

"Your 'Gods' stopped being relevant in the real world thousands of years ago. Like hell I'll 'oblige' them.'" Kaiba snarled, this time managing to slur most of his sentence.

He was at his limit.

My priest's mouths began to open, unwilling to let Kaiba's jab against the divine go unchallenged.

"-Isis." I called out, cutting them off before a new argument could begin and gaining the priestess's attention instantly. She wouldn't like this task, but there was no one more suited for it at this moment. Kaiba clearly recognized her, even if it was as Ishizu. "Find Kaiba somewhere to rest." Isis looked skeptical for a moment, her eyes drifting sedately to Kaiba as he angrily tensed at the suggestion.

"I told you, I don't need 'rest', and I'm not going anywhere with any of your toadies!" Kaiba hissed back, his voice was more tired than I had ever heard it before but ready to fight me to the floor regardless.

I wasn't sure how best to deal with him. I had known the duelist long enough to have witnessed time and time again that attempting to force Kaiba to do anything against his will inevitably backfired upon all those involved. If Yugi was with me he would have known how best to approach the situation. I'd seen his unwavering kindness in the face of Kaiba's blunt rudeness win over the taller duelist before.

"Of course not." Isis agreed, somewhat easily. That was a rare. Seto and she typically spent more time quarreling than they did agreeing with one another. "Yet the Pharaoh has issued a command." She continued simply. "The chambers are this way." she gestured with an outstretched arm toward the passageway leading to the living quarters, her boldness seeming to momentarily disarm Kaiba. He glowered at Isis for a long few seconds; clearly caught between his pride and his common sense.

"Hnh. Whatever." He muttered after the pause, abruptly smirking.

Without allowing a single step to be taken toward him he pivoted on his heel and slowly stalked off in the gestured direction. I nodded to my priestess and she bowed in reply before turning to follow him.

"That felt too easy." I noted quietly as the pair of them slipped out of ear shot.

I suspected Kaiba had something duplicitous in mind to consent to being my guest with only such a token resistance, despite the many number of times I had agreed to be his. Knowing his stubbornness he was more likely to charge head long back into the harshness of the desert than accept my hospitality but I had faith that whatever he was planning Isis would prove equal to the challenge.

"Yes. It was." Mahad agreed belated as he watched after them with a solemn expression on his face.

"Isis will be fine with him." I assured the magician. I could understand that sending her away with Kaiba was concerning given Kaiba's demeanor, but while the duelist was far from harmless I knew Isis would come to no ill fate for escorting him. Mahad's pensive expression cleared in surprise, his eyebrows rising toward the fringe of his hair. Perhaps I had misjudged. "Is there something else?" I questioned, wondering if my assumption had been mistaken.

There was a pause before he answered.

"This afterlife is a reflection of life lived" Mahad mused, the words slow and contemplative. He glanced around the throne room expectantly. "I wonder what will become of it once two different lives come to be reflected in the same pool."

* * *

**AN:** A Des Counter, known as a Doom Counter in the _Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's_ anime and Death Counter in the Japanese version, is a counter used exclusively by the card "Infernity Zero". When there are three Des Counters on "Infernity Zero", it's destroyed (generally causing its controller to lose the Duel). The Eye of Osiris card basically works the same way, though in this fic I've decided to use the 'Death Counter' term over the other versions as it fits better thematically with the story.


	9. Chapter 9

**Kaiba**

Find Anubis. Finish the duel. Go home. I listed off the tasks in my mind, making sure to keep things simple. I was tired. I didn't need the Pharaoh to tell me that; I could tell it already from just how difficult it had become to keep my thoughts organized. Lucky me, I'd been trained to function under this exact stressor. I was used to it.

'Atem' was even stupider than he looked if he thought I was just going to kick back in his guest suite and take a load off. There was a duel out there to win and I'd be damned if I was going to sit and 'rest' while he ran off to play hero again. Anubis signed his own death warrant the moment he thought he could go for a joy ride in my body.

To add insult to injury my Dual Dimension Suit was irreparable. He'd ripped it so far apart that half of it had been on the other side of the room by the time I was back in the driver's seat. It was done for unless these ancient Egyptian yokels could find me a soldering iron. I wasn't going to hold my breath on that one, but there was still a chance to patch up the Duel Disk.

It crackled, humming and fizzing as the broken components struggled to function. If winning this game was the only other way to get back home then there was no way I was going to play fast and loose with what was left of my tech so I'd have to fix that first. I had Mokuba waiting for me and a company to manage; getting stuck here because of some potentially ridiculous Duel Disk malfunction mid-duel wasn't an option. My pod's rear cargo compartment had some emergency tools for use in the event of a Duel Disk's mechanical failure, which made getting out of this sand castle and back to it job one.

I kept my eyes peeled for a side exit as I walked the corridors of the Pharaoh's palace since I was several thousand years too early to find a fire escape. I needed some way to get the hell out of here without Atem finding out about it and trying to send me away like a punk kid again. Who did he think he was? Dismissing me like one of his flunkies. I'd already guessed everything they'd prattled on about as they'd inspected the tablet text. Their conclusion was stupidly obvious. I'd come here for a duel and now I was stuck in the afterlife until this thing with Anubis played out. In a way it was what I was used to. If only the winner got to leave the afterlife then effectively losing meant death. Losing always meant death. I was running on fumes and my head was a mess; racing from one thing to the next but that thought was clear. It fit like a well-worn boot and I'd known that from the outset, but I hadn't 'lost' this time and I wasn't going to stick around until Atem saved the day because some long forgotten god or sorcerer had decided otherwise.

I had revenge to claim in the real world, after all.

Pegasus must have known this would happen! He'd set me up with his neat little 'look at this newly discovered tablet' trick. I'd run the image through a program to illuminate any falsehoods or digital manipulation and it had been legitimate but now I saw his play for what it really was. Did he really believe I'd just stick around here in Atem's little mushroom kingdom for the rest of eternity? As if I wouldn't come after him? He was even more deluded than the Pharaoh if that's what he thought and that was really saying something.

_"You have abused my trust and our friendship!"_

Why couldn't I get those stupid words out of my head? What sort if idiot trusts his enemy anyway?

_"I vow to you here and now, I will never forgive this."_

Tch.

The words were familiar and even as all the other sounds in the room had been sucked up I'd heard that clear as a bell. It didn't matter; I didn't want or need his forgiveness. It probably meant there wouldn't be a rematch though. I scowled, having to admit I wasn't in the mood for one right now. Not until my way out of this dimension and back to Mokuba's was standing in front of me.

I rounded a corner heading away from the throne room down an adjoining passageway, mapping the building out in my mind. Every turn I took was followed by Ishizu in a stupid hat, her footfalls echoing behind me unhurried like she had all the time in the world to catch up to me. Glimpsing her every now and again in the periphery of my vision was pissing me off. If she was going to tail me then I wanted her where I could see her so I stopped and waited for her to catch up. She took her sweet time.

Atem had called her 'Isis', but this was clearly just Ishizu in a more ridiculous headdress. Did he have no originality at all? Half of his court was copied and pasted out of the real world and his Duel Monsters deck. The selection was annoyingly nonsensical. Somehow myself and Ishizu made the cut but none of the scooby gang was here dressed in drag with a box on their head. Even Ishizu's insane brother wasn't here and I thought they'd have come as a package deal.

I sneered, keeping Ishizu in my line of sight while still leading us through hallway after hallway. "So what, your brother didn't get invited to the afterparty?"

Clearly she had no intention of leading me anywhere like Atem had ordered her to. She seemed content to let me roam around unchecked. That was was smart. If she'd tried to direct me I'd have lost her in a heartbeat.

She was rubbing her temple with firm circular motions like she was nursing the worlds worst migraine and almost walked right into me.

"Did you asked a question?" She muttered softly. Great. She hadn't been paying any attention at all.

"Your brother?" I snapped, making sure she got it this time. Seto Kaiba didn't repeat himself.

She looked at me strangely.

Ishizu had eyes like a dead fish at the best of times but for a moment she looked unsure what I was saying and then her eyes slid to the right and turned inward, as though trying to remember something she'd heard a long time ago. "I have no brother" She eventually replied, blinking slowly as she did so. "I am the only child of Djedi and Iset" she finished, as though describing what should have been impressive credentials.

I glared at her as we turned around corner - hoping she'd get the point that I didn't ask for her life story and didn't care - but had to stop short when I noticed I'd led us into a someone's living quarters while asking my question.

The wooden doors at either side of the doorway had been left open and through the entrance was a room decorated with thick silks and statues of winged cobras. There was a faint draft rustling the fabrics making the place smell like flowers and mint. The decoration was gaudy and terrible - some elaborate urn or scroll was on every surface and polished blades and spears sat on display stands and weapon racks.

"You have sniffed out Seto's chambers like a jackal finding carrion." Came Ishizu's sedate voice from beside me, amusement jabbing at me from her words despite her monotone delivery.

I loathed her implication - that me and that robe-wearing imitation could be in inexplicably linked in any way. The fact that he had my name made me want to take out a lighter and burn his room to the ground. The coincidence gave me an opportunity though. I stepped into the room properly, noting and not caring that Ishizu chose to remain at the doorway rather than follow me in.

I didn't believe in 'auras' or 'presence' or any of that mystical nonsense, but I did believe in empirical evidence. I glanced around the room, not bothering to enter it more than I needed to in order to confirm my theory.

There was no sign of Mokuba here - no Mokuba of any kind, not even an ancient Egyptian knock-off.

My brother left a mark everywhere he went. Sometimes it was a food wrapper in a wastepaper bin, or a light left on, or more recently stubbing his feet against things so half the furniture in the mansion was slightly askew. Puberty was a bitch. Sometimes it was less obvious, like his slightly sweaty tween smell or disrupted cushions or bed linens. He liked my bedroom a lot more than I did and even there he'd settle in and make the space his own if he needed to talk to me for more than two minutes. None of those minor disruptions or companionable feeling was here.

" _He_ doesn't have a brother either?" I stated out loud. It wasn't a question, but a demand for confirmation.

Getting here only to find Atem already had another version of 'me' to play house with had made my skin crawl but time restraints hadn't allowed me to act on the impulse to force feed the fake his own hat. All of them were acting like we were same the damn person, but if the 'High Priest' didn't have a brother then there was no way we were anything alike.

There was another introspective pause as Isis queried her internal database, or whatever she was doing. "He does not." Ishizu eventually replied, watching me intently. That settled it then.

Without Mokuba by my side I wouldn't be... I didn't even know how to finish the thought. Wouldn't be 'functional'? Wouldn't be 'alive'? I wouldn't be me and I sure as hell wouldn't be here. The fake didn't have Mokuba, so despite the looks, the voice and the name, we couldn't be the same. Even when passed through the fog in my skull the logic was pleasingly simple and reliable, like a mathematical equation. With that conclusion reached I turned to leave the room.

"Wait." Ishizu belatedly bleated, her tone made even softer with distraction.

For the first time she crossed the threshold into the room, frowning at something as she did so "I wonder..." She murmured airily, speaking more to herself than me. It wasn't like she needed to be more cryptic than usual, but somehow she was managing it.

Slipping across the chamber she parted one of the long silk curtains hanging around the place like the dressing of a sweaty opium den to reveal an opening in the wall. That explained where the breeze was coming from. A small balcony overlooked a whole lot of nothing, but the height was impressive at least. I liked high places and this gave me a perfect view of the surrounding area. She pressed her hands to her mouth and gasped silently as she faced out the window, her face making the right expression and mouth hanging open in disbelief, but somehow not getting the sound out to match.

I rolled my eyes at whatever the hell she was reacting to. These people were just full of unnecessary dramatics. She stepped aside as I approached, making room for me to take a look out from the small balcony and I scanned the view for myself. I shared her surprise, but made sure I didn't show it.

The landscape surrounding the palace had changed. It was different to how it had been earlier today. If ancient Egypt and modern day Domino had been Duel Monsters, then it looked like someone had screwed the rules and played Polymerization to begin to fuse the two with the final form still being worked out as the conflicting components merged together.

Beyond the wastes of the Egyptian desert was now the shimmering outline of a partially coalesced copy of KaibaCorp headquarters. It wavered in place like a mirage or heat haze, semi-translucence and ghost-like. A cell tower and a few of the forests that surrounded Domino and the Kaiba manor had also begun to grow in wherever the hell they pleased to further mess up the map. Each tree was as ghostly as my skyscraper, but seeming to grow more solid with every passing second. The placement of everything was wrong; all of these landmarks were jumbled up and haphazardly arranged.

What the hell was going on?

If it was going to pull from my memory - which it clearly had as some of the newer cladding on the KaibaCorp HQ building had only been completed after Atem decided to fuck off to the afterlife - then it should at least make things geographically accurate.

"This will do." Ishizu voice interrupted my thoughts.

I turned back to her. As soon as my eyes reconnected with hers her expression shifted into something that looked totally alien.

"I request that you stay still." She added, her voice abruptly deeper and huskier as she turned away from me for a second and pulled off her headdress. She tossed it carelessly to the ground and with an inappropriate moan of pleasure she clawed her fingers through her thick hair, pulling it back and over her shoulder. Loose strands spilled from the new styling in heavy waves down toward her clavicle. She could 'request' whatever she wanted. That didn't mean I'd do it. Especially not when she was suddenly throwing her hair around like an over-eager actress in a shampoo commercial.

" _She_ compared you to a jackal, but that was inexact." Ishizu purred, slipping into referring to herself in the third person with a conviction that set me on high alert. "You remind _me_ more of a large wild cat, thrashing his tail back and forth -" She took a step forward, waggling her finger in the air as she did so. "Wary.-" She smirked. "Undisciplinable-" She watched me for a long moment. Abruptly she glided back onto the balcony beside me with the first degree of urgency I'd seen from her, posing herself on the railing seductively with a practiced casualness. "You prowled through the corridors as though they were your own and rebuked the wishes of the little Pharaoh with a natural blasphemousness." She continued, pointing at me lazily with her voice hitching higher the further through each sentence she got. "You remind me of my Master." she finished in a low coo, lowering her eyelids and raising her eyebrows to a sultry expression that set an alarm ringing in my brain.

"What the hell are you talking about?" And when had she gotten so close?

I crushed the urge to step away from her the moment it surfaced and stood my ground. Just exactly what was going on here? This was Ishizu. The woman was more likely to lay into me with some redundant lecture about destiny than bat her eyelashes at me. I planted my feet and crossed my arms as she silently slipped into my personal space. I hated that. I had to clench my fist to stop it from grabbing her wrist as she extended her hand toward me.

"What are you thinking." I demanded, lowering my voice to the tone that got even the most hardened of paparazzi to reassess their life's choices and step off.

"You look good enough to eat." She hummed to herself more than me, jabbing her fingers into the left of my chest and walking them upward to rest above my heart. My coat muffled the feeling of them but not by nearly enough. I glared at her with purpose, letting her know that if she didn't step off I would make her. Her reply was a smirk that looked too wide for her face.

"Did you hit your head-" I growled threateningly but she continued over me like I hadn't spoken.

"-I could take you in my mouth and then tear you apart, piece by piece." She crawled her body even closer to mine. "In a glorious consumption."

What the hell was wrong with her?

"Yeah, no thanks." I replied, keeping my tone level. I didn't know what game Ishizu was playing but she was gonna play it solo. She squirmed as I gripped her wrist and ripped her hand off of me. I didn't know what this little display as but I'd be damned if I let myself be intimated by a woman; especially one as dead-pan as Ishizu. I locked my arms across my chest and stared her down as she blinked up at me looking neither wounded or discouraged despite my crystal clear intention to do both.

Whatever this trick was I refused to buy into it but I had to grit my teeth against the impulse to throw her off of me as she sidled even closer, so close that her chest pressed against mine.

"I'm warning you." I snapped, edging ever closer to losing it but refusing to concede an inch. I'd seen power plays like this before. This was the kind of thing that got Gozaburo up in the morning. Actually, I knew for a fact it had at least once...

Tiredness was a time machine for me. I'd spent the majority of my education under Gozaburo pushed to my limit. Too cautious to eat. Too tired to sleep. It always brought me back to those years. He'd probably conditioned that on purpose. That had to be why the memory was so vivid.

Her breasts had been pressed up against him, crushed against his burgundy suit despite the abject resentment in her eyes. He'd forced her to the floor the moment I had walked through the door, securing his power over her with a punishing handful of her hair. He beckoned me closer just so he could look down on me more easily.

"Actions have consequences boy. I know you can't have forgotten that." He had towered over me back then. The cook was kneeling in front of him, her head bowed. I briefly wondered if he'd called me in here to watch an execution. There was a weight in the air like someone or something was about to die.

My heart had pounded in my chest. This was it. This was the punishment. He'd waited until I'd recovered from surgery just so I could watch without distraction or impediment. The stitches in my arm itched but I'd ignored them. Don't move, don't blink, don't breathe. Just be quiet. Watch. It be over quicker; whatever the hell 'it' was.

The cook's eyes watered, the whites of her eyes so wide and fearful they bulged out of her eye sockets. I'd never seen her look anything other than composed. She was a proud, no-nonsense sort of woman. She'd ruled over the mansion's kitchen staff with an iron fist and it was clear she'd fought every inch of her way up the career ladder for that privilege. I'd liked her pride. Mokuba had liked her desserts.

Gozaburo tightened his grip in her hair as she tried to struggle for a moment. I'd only ever seen it up in a professional-looking bun until now. It looked nice down; or it would have were it not keeping her tethered to Gozaburo's clenched fist.

"Nothing to say?" Gozaburo smirked. I shook my head. There was only maliciousness in his grin. This one was particularly dark. The sort he wore before breaking someone down to 'make a point'. His definition of hands on learning was... painful. "Tell me she acted alone and that'll be the end of it." Her breath hitched and she turned her eyes on me, all of her poise lost as she silently begged me to absolve her. I ignored it, more focused on his words than even breathing in and out.

A free pass? That was unheard of. This had to be a trick. It was never that simple. The shock must have somehow crossed my face. Gozaburo chuckled as I averted my eyes away from the cook, struggling to find enough mercy or guilt to tell the truth and relieve her from what would be a horrible punishment. We were in Gozaburo's bedroom. That was how I knew it was going to be especially bad. If I copped to it then he wouldn't kill me at least. I was too valuable a commodity already… but I really didn't want to know what he had in mind for this location.

Somewhere way down deep it was like a screw tightened another fraction inside of me; or a coil pressurized.

When my eyes returned to his they were as cold as my resolve. I hadn't co-coerced her, she'd volunteered to help me. She should have known better. The cook began to sob at my expression, knowing already I hadn't enough left to want to save her and take her place.

"She acted alone." I replied, casually.

Gozaburo's lips curled at the corner in to a something victorious and cruel and not quite human.

"Good."

His expression told me he'd won something. I didn't know what. All I knew was I hated him.

"Young master, please!" the cook wailed, tears pouring down her elegant cheek bones. Gozaburo watched me closely as she half-heartedly struggled to get up from the floor and was stilled by a yank on her hair. "Please..." she whispered so softly it was hard to hear over the blood rushing through my ears.

My heart was thundering in my chest.

If I got away with this -actually really got away with this- without being punished again then it would be worth whatever she was going to endure next. I squeezed my eyes shut and refused to recant that as Gozaburo turned back to her and the sound of him unzipping his trousers carved a rip in the silence of the room.

Was he going to-?

The cook sobbed quietly to herself.

I couldn't look; I tore my eyes away from hers, locked them on a lamp that had been minding its own business up until it became the recipient of every shred of hate my body could will upon it from the well in the pit of my gut.

"Look away and I'll make you watch as I do the other end afterwards, boy." Came a gruff threat, made only worse by the amusement that dripped from it.

He wanted me to watch him… do… this? I was what, thirteen? twelve? Of course I'd thought about 'it', but all of that was theoretical to me. Purely theoretical. I stared back at him, trying not to grimace or make a sound as he pulled himself out of his pants and just held it in front of her like he was giving her a gift.

With only a "Get to it" and a yank on her tresses the cook cried one last wave of tears, pulled him out fully and leapt onto him like her life depended on it. It probably did. It shouldn't have been so disturbing, but somehow the desperation with which she closed her lips around him shook me more than the act itself. She had been so proud; so commanding and stern and he'd broken her down to some suckling escort.

"Ahhh." Gozaburo exhaled in a satisfied groan, keeping eye contact with me as he did so. The situation was surreal. It made me a bit sick to watch – to see her do 'that' to him, to see that part of him at all. He hadn't needed to threaten me to keep my watching. It was like a train-wreck or a car crash, I couldn't look away no matter how much the sight and the sounds disgusted me. She didn't stop crying the whole time but at least she stopped sobbing. "Hard to sob with your mouth full." Gozaburo mentioned conversationally, like he was sharing some great pearl of wisdom.

"Remember this, boy." He groaned "A woman's place is with her lips around your meat". He shot me a filthy look. "Doesn't matter which lips". I couldn't focus on anything else except her. Her tongue corded expertly around him, like a snake dancing to a charmers pipe. She ran it around the ridge of his head and down the underside of his shaft like she'd trained for this. She whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut as he plunged all the way into the back of her throat; overpowering her and she gagged and thrashed and then relaxed, completely tame in his grip. She was utterly under his control. Her will to resist was gone. The fight left her eyes and she closed them. Totally subdued. Broken. Docile. Just, crushed.

"You can't trust them. Give them any other power over you and it makes you weaker than they are!" His voice hitched and it was over. "Swallow." He barked at the cook and she did, covering her face with her hands afterwards and crying harder than I'd seen since the new arrivals at the orphanage.

An embroidered handkerchief was plucked from the breast pocket of his suit and he wiped himself on it, his tone casual and distracted as he cleaned up. "Poison is a woman's trick, boy. Try it again and I'll punish you accordingly." I kept my face blank, my eyes blank, my thoughts blank. "Now get out and fix yourself before your next lesson, you little pervert." He smirked, flicking a hand towards the fucking erection in my pants I hoped that by some miracle he'd be too distracted to notice. "Can't have you cumming in the halls now can we, Seto?" He called after me as I escaped the room, red-faced.

I marched stiffly back to my own bedroom, straight into the bathroom and just sat there in the dark, not touching it, just willing it and the shameful feeling of being aroused by that display to go away and never ever come back.

My thoughts slammed back to the present as a sick taste bubbled up from the back of my throat and pressed against my lips. I grimaced at the foulness of it. Leftovers from the throne room was my guess – the disgusting sour-bitter combo of decay, dirt and blood was exactly the same. Black residue came away on the back of my hand as I angrily wiped it against my mouth. Gross. I really did need that mouthwash to get rid of the last of Anubis's disgusting 'sorcery'. Or a cigarette to snuff the taste out with once and for all. Great as that idea sounded Ishizu distracted me from it with a brand new move. None of Gozaburo's 'education' had prepared me for her hand darting lower to grab at a territory that was most definitely off limits to the public. I felt like a fucking idiot as I jumped backwards away from her grasp. I couldn't be sure that I wasn't going to wring her neck for a split second as she laughed hysterically.

"What the hell are you doing!" I shouted as she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply through her nose like there was blood in the air, then hummed in approval.

"Afraid, are you?" She smirked and purred and her expression become something else entirely as she took another step forward and I took another step back. I recognized the look in her eyes and she stalked me down. It was a look I'd seen on Gozaburo when he sensed fear, no matter how well or what length I went to to try to hide it. She swung her arms casually at her side and swayed her hips as she closed the space I had created between us.

"Good." She added and blinked slowly. I dodged away from her as she lunged forward to grab me again. "I do so love the taste of fearful flesh."

My lower back buffeted against the railing of the balcony and I gripped it tightly. Her eyes and teeth flashed like warning signals as she cornered me. Damn it. I couldn't believe I'd let her trap me.

"Stay still and it shall be quick." She drawled. I leaned as far back from her as my balance would allow as she threaded her arms around mine, pinning them to my sides. With a final step toward me she gently rested her head against my torso. Her hold was unnaturally strong – that was the only explanation. It had to be why I -

"Hnh."

\- why I froze in place as she held onto me.

"Hhhhmmmm." She murmured into my ear as she licked my neck.

"Get the fuck off of me!"

Move.

Move, now!

"It's all over now." She whispered, unhinging her jaw to dislocate it like a snake.

Move, move, just move damn it! A little mobility came back to me and I pushed against her embrace. She was too close. I needed her to get the hell off of me. Right now! Struggling was the wrong move. She crushed her body against me like a mousetrap and snatched at my hair so hard she almost ripped it off of my skull but the pain jump started my reaction as she shattered half of the railing and pushed me from the balcony and with a freakishly powerful shove against my shoulder. I was quick enough to snatch the underside of the railing in my grip one-handed, though using my left hand had been a mistake. There was a familiar rush of pain and sharp ache as something popped in a way it wasn't meant to.

"Ghnn!"

I hissed as I held on, spasms shooting down my arm, threatening to crawl further along the limb to weaken the hold of my fingers.

"That's quite a grip you have." Not-Ishizu praised, eyebrows perked in interested as she leaned nonchalantly over what remained of the balcony railing to watch me dangle from it.

My feet found a rocky outcropping to brace against. I'd show her my fucking grip alright. With a rush of adrenaline I used the crag I was standing on to launch myself back up onto the balcony, Not-Ishizu stepping back as I swung my legs over it and tried to kick her in one solid motion. I crouched low and didn't give her time to find her footing, the damaged Duel Disk on my arm buzzing nosily as my neural up-link fed it my demand for a card.

"You better step back, because I summon Kaiser Sea Horse!"

My Kaiser Sea Horse answered my summoning in a roaring explosion of light and ocean spray and took a step toward Not-Ishizu to put some distance between us. Its head scraped against the rest of its exoskeleton as it turned its head to me for my order, a drop of the sea salt that was covering the plates flying to splatter against my cheek as one piece of carapace ground against another. What the hell? I caught that drip before it could go anywhere and held it hostage on my thumb. It was real. It really was a fat droplet of sea water - partially cloudy with saline and grit from the ocean floor.

So it was going to be one of those kinda days then.

Half the time most of the creatures in Duel Monsters seemed desperate to inhabit that uncanny valley between holographic construct and actual real fucking monster. Of course all this stupid Egyptian bull would make my holograms decide they were real... again.

Funny how you can get used to a thing, no matter how unlikely.

It was impossible of course; this weird hybrid, and I wouldn't accept for a single minute it was 'magic' at work but I wasn't going to kid myself. Realistic as my holograms were this monster more than just light. I could see its exoskeletal joints pivot and smell the sea salt that had dried against its body. It was more than just a computer generated character model stretched over rigging. KaibaCorps 3D modeling team was second to none but even they couldn't get that level of authenticity. It was also warm. Kaiser Sea Horse wouldn't be warm if it was under my creative direction; as a sea serpent it would have been cold-blooded like an amphibian or reptile, not warm-blooded like a mammal. Unlikely as it was, I knew my own work and this wasn't it.

Whatever the case; hologram or real creature or some wacky hybrid, it didn't matter. My monster's body flickered; losing its outer skin to reveal only the holographic rig beneath its character model - then for a split second it crapped out entirely.

"What?"

The underside of my Duel Disk sparked with each blink before it finally decided to clue me in on the problem, flashing up a projection of the device's power gauge as what should have been almost a full charge crashed down to a useless 10% and triggered a power warning. Damn it! There was a dent from my own fingers in the outer casing – the damage must have compacted some of the components and wires inside. The unit sparked angrily as I glowered at it. A normal Duel Disk's outer shell could stand up to a lot of punishment, but these aluminum alloys weren't nearly as tough. Since I'd been taking it into space and across dimensions making it light had taken priority over making it durable and that decision had come back to bite me.

Not-Isizhu took a step back and then smirked hungrily at me as the sea serpent abruptly flickered and de-spawned as the power gauge dropped another 2%.

Fine!

Something that took less power to render then! A new card came to mind and I slapped it onto the field without hesitation.

"A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon!"

**Atem**

My gaze was drawn away from the corridor Kaiba had departed down as Mahad spoke.

"You are concerned for him." The priest observed. His head also turned to the chamber Kaiba and Isis had left down.

"Yes." I conceded, having no need to hide my feelings from my most loyal magicians as I watched the hallway contemplatively. "Kaiba seems to be himself again." I began. Fatigued, but himself by all measures the obstinate duelist I had come to know. "But there are many other places Anubis could hide in." I concluded.

"If he has claimed a new host then he may bide his time." Mahad agreed after a long pause before wincing and brushing aside the corner of his headdress to massage his temple.

"Are you alright?" I questioned quietly, not wishing to alarm Mana.

"Yes." Mahad replied with a furrowed brow, sounding slightly pained. "Just a headache. Too much sun, I suspect. It will pass." He assured me with a mild smile, though I knew the priest well enough to be concerned. "We should focus task at hand."

I nodded even as I watched him closely for any further signs of injury or discomfort. "Anubis must be found quickly-" I belatedly agreed, puzzling out the next course of action out loud as I frowned. "-If we allow him a reprieve he'll only use it to build back his power." Of that I was certain.

"I assume his summoning is Seto's folly?" Mahad remarked neutrally, casting his calm eyes over the ruin of my throne room. I raised my eyebrow at the astute deduction, needing to do no more than that for my priest to gather my meaning. "I fear I am to blame." Mahad explained as his lips down-turned slightly to make his expression one of soft contrition. "I should never have remarked on the White Dragon's loyalty to his reincarnation." My priest sighed so quietly it was inaudible as he cast his gaze over to the ruddy smear upon the wall that my High Priest had left behind. "Doing so was foolhardy."

"That explains much." I noted, following Mahad's regretful gaze to the stain. It didn't fully explain the nature of Seto's actions but did reveal their motivation at least. Though their time together had been very brief Seto's heart had forged a deep and powerful bond with the young woman who's Ka now took the form of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Had Seto grown angry enough to take action once he'd learn that she'd pledged her fealty to another? Even if that 'other' was indeed a part of himself and shared his very soul? Absurd as the idea was it was completely possible. Both Kaiba and Seto could be equally pig-headed in their covetous affections for the dragon, though my eyes narrowed in thought as I failed to recall a single ritual or incantation that could achieve such an effect. "I don't know of any spells that can sever the bond between souls." I admitted to Mahad, "Especially a bond as strong as that between the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Kaiba." One so potent Kaiba had once named his dragons the very embodiment of his soul, as though the two were interchangeable.

"Nor I." Mahad hummed, a pensive expression crossing his features. "Magic that manipulates the soul is troublesome by nature, and prone to producing unintended side effects." He mused in a disapproving tone.

A suggestion from Mahad's side took me by surprise as Mana rejoined the conversation with renewed energy, stepping into a puddle of now inert ooze as she bounded back to us. "Maybe High Priest Seto left behind some notes?" She suggested while lifting her foot from the floor and pulling a face as it stuck to the tacky remains of the ooze underfoot. She crinkled her nose and waved it around in the air before straightening up into the picture of false composure. Her eye twitched as a little more of it slid down her foot covering.

I raised my eyebrows in surprise at the simplicity of the idea and exchanged a look with Mahad. He coiled a finger against his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps."

Seto was a studious note taker and as High Priest kept detailed records and logs of everything he did stored away in his chambers. If fate was kind and supplied us with such insight there was no guarantee that undoing his spell would restore Anubis's seal, but even so. "It's worth a try" I announced as I set out toward the entrance to one of the throne room's side chambers, hearing my magicians easily fall into step behind my back as they followed me. The throne room swiftly gave way to an enormous outdoor plaza that acted as the thoroughfare between the temple and palace. A procession of sphinx statues lined the immaculate stone walkway as we cut across grand the hypostyle hall in a shortcut that lead towards the entrance to the my priests living chambers. I paused on the threshold, debating something that had been bothering me.

"Mana." I held the priestess's hand for a moment to command her attention and her bright eyes gleamed attentively back at me in the evening shadows. "Please find Isis in the guest quarters and keep watch over Kaiba." Judging from Kaiba's parting smirk he had some plan in mind. Probably a foolish one. Though Isis was fully capable of handling whatever that plot was I knew full well how formidable Kaiba's stubbornness could be.

I turned to Mahad. "Meanwhile we shall see if Seto has left behind anything that may be of use to us."

Mana loosely clenched her hands, raising them up to her sides and nodded in understanding. "Right!"

At that we split ways. Mana's footsteps quickly faded into the distance as Mahad and I threaded between obelisks and pillars to the center-most chamber and ascended the stone stairway, hearing the sociable murmur of other priests discussing their duties and days as we passed them by. It was a warm sound, until it was interrupted by an angry shout.

I needed not even glance to Mahad for back-up as we both spirited ourselves to the doorway in a dead sprint, my cloak whirling against my calves as I slid to a stop in front of Seto's living quarters and the scene within.

"A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon!" Kaiba yelled.

What was he thinking?

The specter of an enormous orange dragon appeared at Kaiba's back, flapping it's great wings only once to create a massive vortex of air. It struck Isis squarely, throwing her across the room to collide painfully against the wall on the opposite side of Seto's chambers. She gasped as a spear fell from the weapon rack above her, falling through the air like an executioners axe to almost cleave her in two. With a lunge Isis cleared the falling armament, but only just. A portion of her was robe trapped beneath the blade and tore loudly as my priestess slowly found her feet.

She looked furious for a brief moment; her face filling with sort of ravenous rage I had never seen before. I blinked to clear my vision and the expression was gone in an instant. She turned to us, bowing to me as we lingered in the door way. "My apologies for the disruption, my Pharaoh. I believe he is overtired." A gentle contrition echoed in her words. Had I imagined that look of fury? There was certainly no trace of it now. I nodded to Isis, acknowledging her apology before turning my attention to Kaiba.

"What's are yo doing, Kaiba?" I demanded, needing an explanation as to why he would attack my priestess. I had chosen Isis hoping their relationship in the modern world would calm Kaiba, but he was anything but! Though his expression was composed, his body language was to the contrary. His wide legged stance was a familiar one, it made him look like he had just taken a direct hit to his Life Points and had yet to recover his normal dueling pose.

Having struck Isis down with it's wings the dragon at his back evaporated into nothingness while Kaiba himself leaned pressed up against the crumbling railing of my High Priest's balcony. A dribble of sweat crawled down from his neck as he stared at Isis with an expression veiled of all emotion.

"Kaiba!" I yelled a second time; only now catching his attention. His eyes slicing away from Isis to stare at me coldly. I felt my face darken with ire and his expression turned stormy in return.

"She tried to throw me off a balcony." Kaiba snapped back. He didn't seem to be sarcastic, or taunting in his statement.

"He slipped in fatigue." Isis countered, gently – speaking more to Kaiba than myself. "I tried to help you. You are in need of rest." She bowed her head and turned her eyes on me, nodding softly.

"I didn't slip!" Kaiba roared back. "And whatever _that_ was, it wasn't ' _helping_ '!"

"You misunderstood my intentions." Isis beseeched Kaiba.

"I didn't _'misunderstand'_ anything!" He countered. A piece of the balcony fell away; the heavy chunk of stone beneath Kaiba's hand dislodging from the rest of the railing and crumbling toward the earth below. He turned briefly to watch it tumble downward and then stood up a little straighter to bring his weight off of the unstable fencing.

"Come away from the balcony." Isis bid him as she took a step toward Kaiba. He warily took a step backwards to match. That was strange. Kaiba was not one to concede territory. His expression was closed and unrevealing, even as his eyes darted between me and Isis cautiously.

"Something is wrong with her." He gritted out as she outstretched her hand to him, beckoning him to a safety a I knew Kaiba would ignore.

I know what I'd just seen, but despite witnessing his attack I didn't doubt Kaiba's words. Misunderstanding or not, every line in his body was poised and tensed for a fight as though he were about to start a difficult duel. To Kaiba the threat was real; yet Isis was correct. He was exhausted.

Isis lowered her hands peaceably and turned to me, awaiting my command for how to proceed. I glanced between the two of them and Kaiba's composure promptly slipped into irritation – one now aimed at me.

"Who are you going to believe?" He demanded as a holographic keyboard flashed up uncertainly above Kaiba's Duel Disk. His fingers attacked it, typing something into the device as his eyes steadily stared me down.

He was demanding my trust again. I frowned.

Never before had I felt any difficulty in trusting Kaiba beyond our first encounters, but not more than two hours earlier he had used the same tactic to goad me into attacking him to end our duel - an attack which had been designed to place me as his captive in the living world. The circumstances of Kaiba's demand for my belief couldn't have been worse and as Pharaoh I didn't doubt my priestess; especially Isis, whose drive to aid me in my return to the afterlife had been so unwavering she had even been reincarnated in the modern world to assist me.

"Kaiba-" I took a step toward him. "Wait for a moment -"

"Wrong answer." Kaiba interrupted.

"Power override complete." My Duel Disk announced from my side. I stared at it, almost unable to believe Kaiba's brazenness as a power percentage rapidly fell on my device's display while his own was boosted in turn. My readout of 82% tumbled downward as Kaiba's matching log swelled in power from 4% to a steady 51%. A hand that had been hovering over his Duel Disk slapped a new card down onto the device's holographic surface.

"Return of the Dragon Lords, revive my Blue-Eye's White Dragon!" He commanded. Thanks to the spell one of his Blue-Eyes exploded into being in a flash of soft supernatural light and hovered protectively at Kaiba's back just beyond the reaches of the balcony.

Though it was his most beloved monster there was a slow cautiousness with which is held his hand behind his back to her. Without looking away from Isis his finger tips connected tentatively against against the dragon's muzzle as the monster pressed it into his palm. She growled softly, the sound little more than a dragon's whicker.

Kaiba turned away from me with a final look that was full of reproach. "Thanks for the reminder, Pharaoh." He spat my title as though it were poison coating his tongue. "There's only one thing that I can rely on - and it's right behind me!" His dragon roared at Kaiba's boast, her thunderous howl crying out to prove her master's point.

He threw a long leg over his dragon's back and mounted her with ease. "Get me out of here." he hastily remarked to the dragon, not bothering to spare a side-ways glance to his most trusted servant; simply accepting that her loyalty was absolute. Blue-Eye's craned her long muscular neck around to check he was seated properly before throwing one final snarl at everyone within the room. Her master scowled at us all before bidding Blue-Eye's take flight with a command of "Let's go!" The dragon growled in response.

"Kaiba!" I shouted his name after him as with a flex of her powerful wings both the dragon and her master were aloft and tearing through the night sky away into the northern desert where the ghost of Kaiba Corporation Headquarters loomed large. "Hrrr." I gritted my teeth as they vanished from sight, swallowed up by the evening's darkness. That had gone poorly, even by mine and Kaiba's standards. It seemed it was fate that he and I would always be at odds.

"I am sorry, my Pharaoh." Isis bowed before me, collecting her headdress that blown off from the floor as she did so.

"As am I." I replied, scowling at the sky as I replayed Kaiba's words in my mind. "Because I _do_ believe Kaiba." Her eyebrow perked as she glanced up at me. My Duel Disk's power percentage fell another couple of points to a heavily weakened 17% as a muted golden card coelesced from it at my behest. Kaiba had siphoned away so much from it but I would make do with what I had left. "Be still." I commanded the priestess. My card blazed in dulled light as I snagged it between my fingers and watched Isis's expression change from a gentle curiosity to a sudden searing scorn as I turned it to face her.

"I call upon the Eye of Truth." I proclaimed.

Isis scrambled to her feet in a manner that was decidedly unlike her and took a step backwards.

The Eye of Truth rendered in gold and seeped into shades of red and purple. It hovered in the air between us and through its iris I saw the truth of the matter. Standing behind Isis loomed the hulking shadow of a dark and familiar manipulator.

"Your deceit ends here!" I announced. "It's over, Sphinx Teleia."

The silhouette of the lion-bodied monster wavered at Isis's shoulders like a veil of darkness and with her deception known Sphinx Teleia bothered with the charade no longer. My priestess's face split apart in a cruel and overly wide smirk. "Oh my Pharaoh, this has only just begun." She purred, Isis's voice almost warped beyond recognition by the foreign sultry overtones of the monster. Her finger nails extended into long black tapered claws as she ran her tongue over them, coating them with Anubis's necrotic filth as it bubbled up from Isis's slender throat. The sight was foul.

"I won't allow you to defile Isis's body!" I decreed, swiping my hand back toward my Duel Disk for a new card, yet I hadn't been expecting the Sphinx's speed in Isis's body. She reacted quickly with a laugh, sounding every bit as mad as her master as a thick layer of Anubis's necrotic sludge bubbled up from the pores of her skin, spreading down her arm and shifting and hardening to create–

"-A Duel Disk?"

A bubble of sludge popped wetly and from it a black Duel Monsters card formed from the rapidly solidifying ooze. She pulled it free; it came loose with a string of gore still attached as she put the card into play.

"Poison Mummy-" Sphinx Teleia beckoned, flipping the card to summon her new monster. The thin-limbed corpse surged into existence with a spray of filth, its damp wrappings hanging loose from wiry decaying arms as it malevolently grinned at me with a lipless mouth. "-strike the Pharaoh down!"

"Braaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhh!" Swiftness that its rotting legs didn't look capable of propelled Poison Mummy towards me as it leaped across the room in a flurry of waxy skin and ruined bandages. With a slash of its long gnarled nails against my body the monster carved open a gash and the card I had just drawn slipped from my hand as I clutched at my side.

"Hngh!"

"We shall meet again soon, little Pharaoh." Sphinx Teleia cooed as her mummy lunged back to her side. "But I have more entertaining prey to play with the meantime." Sphinx Teleia ran Isis's tongue over her host's teeth as she delicately slid her hand over the pitch black Duel Disk, sacrificing away Poison Mummy and in a rush of tar a new monster was summoned onto the floor in front of us.

Hieracosphinx's hawk head screeched atop its hulking leonine body as it grew free of it's summoning stupor, glossy ebony feathers shedding from its wings as it stalked across all that was left of the balcony Kaiba had escaped from. The sinewy muscles of its pale-furred limbs coiled as it lowered itself toward the ground into a bow and Teleia mounted her beast. With her fingers buried in its feathered mane the monster leapt out of the balcony window, scaling the wall of my palace with ease to disappear in Kaiba's last known direction in a flurry of slashing claws and thrashing tail.

"Teleia!" I roared after her, the cut in my side smarting as I ran toward the balcony.

"My Pharaoh-" I was stopped short before reaching the railing by my magician's rare shout. Mahad had been so silent I'd hardly remembered he was with me at all. That was odd. Even as a Duel Monster incapable of speech I had never felt his presence so distantly that I'd forgotten him while he stood by my side. I turned to him, momentarily suspicious but felt my dubiousness melt away as I beheld how closely his eyes studied Isis's body as it vanished into the distance atop Hieracosphinx. His concern for Isis had likely stayed his hand and words. "-Permit me to pursue Sphinx Teleia on your behalf." He requested. "Seto Kaiba may find the desert difficult to navigate on his own, especially if he is being hunted." Mahad added, anticipating my thoughts and speaking my newest concern aloud.

"Very well." I nodded, silently thanking my champion for his stalwart levelheadedness in all of its forms. "Don't let her escape." I bid the magician, easily entrusting Sphinx Teleia's capture to him as I in turn I swept my eyes over the distant horizon for my own target. Though I very much doubted he would enjoy being chased after by me, Kaiba was alone in an unknown world. A world that was as equally unprepared for the duelist as he was for it. It would be better to find him quickly, before any more harm could come to him at the hands of Anubis and his minions. "I'll find Kaiba - before Sphinx Teleia does." I concluded.

Mahad bowed low to me and with a final glance I nodded back to him before sweeping from the room toward the stables, my cloak billowing behind me.


	10. Chapter 10

**Atem**

Hunting Kaiba was a new experience.

He'd pursued me across cities, countries and dimensions when demanding a duel. Now it was time for me to return the favor. His dragon had flown off towards the northern desert and that would have to suffice as my starting point.

The stallion reared and recoiled as I attempted to release him from his stall within the palace stable yard. He fought me, thrashing his head around as I secured his bridle and whinnied in distress. Though he was young, he wasn't usually prone to such fearful behavior. Perhaps it was the darkness of the open desert that was upsetting him. I climbed onto his back on regardless. The sun had set leaving night to swallow us but the moon bathed the sands in a white glow and the reflected light more than enough to see and ride by.

My heels pressured the stallion's side and my breath caught in my throat as my horse's first strides took me off guard. He jostled me atop his back in a way that agitated the slash Sphinx Teleia had landed to my side. A notable stain had begun to creep its way across the linen of my robes but as I brushed my fingers against the wound very little blood came away on them. Likely it had already clotted.

I took a deep breath and centered myself, glad for my previous practice ignoring injury as the stallion pranced beneath me. As a boy Mahad had intentionally nicked my skin, only once. He had held my hand and spoken softly to me as I witnessed my blood rush from the wound, telling me to best the feeling here and now in the safety of the palace so that it couldn't surprise me for the first time at the hands of an opponent. That cut had been deep but small and attended to by the palace's most capable priests. Teleia's cut was longer than that one had been but also shallower. It would heal quickly. In the meantime I leaned into my horse's strides a little deeper to avoid disrupting the cut further and the discomfort slipped away with the adjustment.

We emerged trotting from the stable yard despite the horse's noisy protests and then I set him cantering out toward the palace gates, dodging the townsfolk who stood dazed in the street, confounded by the nature of the ghostly glow that now pierced the night sky. Artificial light radiated across the horizon as far beyond the city walls my lands were now being displaced by fragments of Domino City and its surrounding area. Half of downtown Domino sat shimmering into existence in the further outskirts of the desert, with sand and earth abruptly giving way to sidewalks and roads. I could see the main plaza beginning to appear and the partially-formed pyramid-shaped glass roof of the Domino City Aquarium reflected the moonlight.

The new additions to the landscape should have surprised me, but they didn't. I wondered why the Gods had seen fit to begin to fold Kaiba's memories into my afterlife, but even as Pharaoh it was not my station to understand the will of the divine. I had named Seto my successor and he had been the Pharaoh of Egypt, my equal, after I was sealed in the Puzzle. Perhaps that was why. Seto's soul was somewhere inside of Kaiba still, though I had no doubt he would deny it until his last remaining breath.

For now the light pollution worked to my advantage as I kept my eyes on the sky for any sign of Blue-Eyes, though I doubted I would find one. I was unsure how far Kaiba had flown and how easily I would be able to reach him once I found him. Knowing him he'd have flown his dragon to the highest point on the landscape to brood and that would coincidentally be the top of the newly formed KaibaCorp building. The obstinate oaf. Yet even angry as he had made me earlier and tossing his most recent kidnapping attempt aside I couldn't allow him to wander the desert alone with an enemy stalking him. Regardless of whatever reckless solution to his current predicament his was stirring up, I would be there to temper him. The decision to do so was familiar and oddly comfortable.

My fear of being unable to catch up to him melted away as I passed the adequately Kaiba-sized hole in the desert dunes; the uniform blanket of the sands glittered strangely around the oddly shaped void. I could predict what had happened even without the long legs of the otherwise innocuous imprint giving it away. The energy he'd stolen had run dry quicker than he'd anticipated and Kaiba's faulty Duel Disk had been unable to sustain his Blue-Eyes for the full length of their flight. I could only imagine the rage with which he had hit the ground. Fortunately his tracks suggested he had landed unharmed. Kaiba's boot prints leading away from the site were as equally unmistakable as the void itself and the brightness of the moonlight cast shadows across the sand that caressed each mark he'd left behind. I nudged the stallion onward, following the trail as it appeared before me. I expected Kaiba wouldn't be far since he had a habit of walking slowly and pictured his usual unhurried saunter as though watching it in front of me: coat tails flying rebelliously against the wind, or lack thereof.

The moonlight found him first - its light dappled over his coat to make it gleam in the distance like a pale scale. Upon finding that single glowing white mark on the horizon I spurred my horse to pick up the pace, charging over the mountainous sand dunes toward him.

He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of my approach and narrowed his eyes as I drew up beside him, the wind stirring up to buffet against us both as my horse stopped at his side.

He was tense and tired.

"Go away."

The greeting was standoffish but nowhere near as venomous as I had been anticipating after reuniting with him. His eyes swept over then me as his muscles clenched. He was ready for a fight; the grim look on his face telling me without words he'd make it as terrible and damaging as he possibly could. This I had expected. I doubted Kaiba would soon forgive me for what he perceived to be even a momentary doubt of his word. He was arrogant enough to demand my unequivocal faith in him just so he throw it back in my face in the name of ill-conceived gambits.

"You were correct. Sphinx Teleia is in possession of Isis's body." There was no point in casting vagaries around the subject. It was better to address it now and be done with it.

He rolled his left shoulder curiously, seeming too distracted by the odd motion to acknowledge my concession. It took him a moment of scowling at the offending body part before he replied. "Hn. I told you so." He taunted tonelessly as my horse grew bored and began to count the sand with his hooves.

He hadn't; not explicitly. He'd accused Isis of attempted murder and then jumped out of a window without giving any more context than that. I dismissed the desire to point that out.

Atop the stallion's back I was taller than Kaiba and I found the new sight of looking down at him - and him up at me- was strange. At my concession the tension in his shoulders had stiffly relaxed in a manner that was quite obvious. His height most likely shielded the habit from most people's notice. There was a tense silence between us and in it I contemplated the new vantage point. It gave me much better view of his eyes and I could see the flecks of sand that now peppered his hair. My assumption he had fallen from his dragon seemed on course to be proven correct.

"Tch. So why are _you_ here?" He demanded bluntly, expression as closed as ever. I had been wanting to level that same question back at him all day. "Come all this way just to tell me that I'm right, cos' I already knew that." He smirked smugly, if tiredly.

Despite Kaiba's mocking tone, his stare was missing an edge of aggressiveness. He averted his eyes to grimace at the horse beneath me as the stallion swatted Kaiba's arm with the mad tossing of his mane and scowled at the stallion with all the wary suspicion a man would normally give a spitting cobra.

"Sphinx Teleia is hunting you-"

"-And?" Kaiba curtly interrupted, as though that wasn't reason enough to justify my concern.

" _And_ you're walking the desert alone in the middle of the night." I replied, refusing to rise to his petulance. I stayed in place on my horse's back effortlessly as the stallion half-heartedly reared in place, still tossing his head in agitation. "Whatever ill-advised scheme you're looking to embark upon, it can wait until morning." I concluded, making sure my tone was as full of reprimand as I could make it.

"No it can't." Kaiba snapped back, quicker than a whip. He held up his arm and brandished his Duel Disk toward me. "I'm winning this duel and getting out of here." He lowered his arm, brushing a few stray pieces of sand caught in the device's smooth angular lines out of the crevices. "And the sooner I'm gone, the sooner you can go back to playing house and never have to see me again." He sneered before turning his back to me and beginning to walk away.

"Stay out of my way and we both get what we want." He called over his shoulder.

"Kaiba." I started, leaving the name out there as an opening move. His words were so prickly it was easy to get cut on them. I brushed them aside, looking for something to say that might begin to appease him enough to come back with me. "That's not what I 'want'." I replied firmly, enunciating the word he had used slowly, deliberately. He paused, peering at me over his shoulder. "I was glad to see you. I still am." Something flashed through his eyes and he stared at me unblinking. "I had thought I wouldn't ever get the chance to duel you again." I added more quietly. He didn't give a reaction but stayed silent and still as though waiting for me to continue. Perhaps it was a trick of the starlight, or the higher vantage point, but something in his gaze shifted to look cautiously hopeful. "Until you attempted to force my hand." I finished sternly, unable to leave his actions unchallenged. That look promptly vanished under a glower.

He muttered something so quietly I couldn't make it out over the rising wind and swiped his head away from me to scowl across the landscape, a bruise from the blow I'd landed on his cheek contrasting against his pale skin. My punch had been unexpected, even to me. Yugi's calm temper had largely filtered out such basic physical impulses. Here, in the face of Kaiba's wilful deafness I had tapped into a more primitive outlet for my anger. I would not allow that to happen again.

I pulled my horse up beside him once more.

"I shouldn't have hit you." I noted, the words halting and awkward. It was petty, but I couldn't bring myself to apologize to Kaiba after his earlier attempt to expel me from my own world... and with the new additions to it born from his brashness.

"What?" He grunted in surprise at the change of topic.

The bruise didn't look bad, though I recalled he had wiped away blood from his mouth after the hit. I hadn't been concerned about that at the time, but Anubis had put Kaiba's body through much in the last few hours.

"May I see?" I asked. Kaiba's eyes narrowed as though expecting this to be some sort of trick but he didn't move away, even as I lifted my hand toward him.

"Why?" he sneered, not moving as I reached out to his chin and angled his head toward me to get a better look. Kaiba warily shot the iciest glare he could muster my way as he tensely allowed me to inspect the bruise. I was surprised he did. "Want to admire your handy work?" he sarcastically taunted with a goading smirk. I frowned at his jeer, deeply unhappy with the impulsive action.

"Striking you was a mistake." I answered. One I wouldn't make again in the future.

Through the side of his eyes he stared at me, drawing them so thin in suspicion they looked almost snake-like. He swallowed thickly, his lips parting a little as he scowled before adding "Don't underestimate me. I can take anything you can dish out, Pharaoh." as though it would set me at ease.

It didn't. His words painted me as an enemy and his semi-hostile glare didn't help. Had our friendship not evolved with every step of our journey? I could trust in Kaiba to clutch so tightly to his old hatreds. I had hoped he was trying to be become better than that.

"Now get off me." He hissed, jerking away from me so suddenly the stallion beneath me spooked at the action. Kaiba threw the animal a filthy look before backing away from both of us and crossing his arms over his chest.

The horse brought me back to my purpose.

"Can you ride?" I questioned, eyebrow slightly raising in genuine curiosity. Kaiba had seemingly inherited Seto's ability to read the languages of my time and Seto himself was a fine horseman. Perhaps the skill had been passed to Kaiba. The stallion was strong enough to spirit both of us back to the palace with ease.

He leveled a look at the stallion beneath me that was at best 'skeptical' and at worst 'hateful'.

"I'm not going back and I'm not getting on that" came the matter-of-fact reply. He turned and continued walking to whatever it was he was journeying towards. I nudged the stallion's sides so he walked on, keeping a level pace beside Kaiba.

He hadn't answered my question.

"Helicopters and aircraft are no issue, but you draw the line at a horse? I suppose he isn't dragon-shaped enough for your tastes?" I ventured, wanting to ruffle his feathers and feeling smug that my blow landed as he replied with a toneless "Tch".

"I don't trust any mode of transport with its own brain." he leered at the stallion and stepped aside to put distance between his feet and the horse's dancing hooves "Especially if its the size of a walnut."

His expression was as stoney as ever, but his eyes kept darting from the horizon to the stallion and then back again. 'Nervous' was not a word I associated with Kaiba, but the dirty side glances he shot like bullets at my horse were difficult to categorize as anything else. The stallion echoed Kaiba's anxiety with his own; his ears pricking forward and then darting back to lie flat against his neck as the duelist's agitation brought the horse's fear to a steadily building climax. Planting his hooves in the sand the stallion reared up and whinnied loudly before slamming his front hooves back down and bucking in quick succession. I had seen him do this to throw the horse trainers, but never had he tried it with me on his back. In a white flash Kaiba lunged out of the way of the horse's hooves, cursing loudly. I rode through the rebellion with little trouble, gently feathering the reigns to bring him back under my control before Kaiba's angry shout set him off again.

"Get off that thing!" He yelled.

I had no idea what was upsetting the stallion so much, but there was no calming him. He had near enough just trampled Kaiba.

I swung my leg over his back and allowed gravity to guide my feet back to the desert sand. Even dismounted, the stallion's snorts and jumps continued. I was reluctant to remove his bridle; reluctant to set him loose, but if he bolted and the reigns caught around his legs it could cost him his life. The decision was familiar and bittersweet. Was it my fate to let go of everything and everyone, even here in my own afterlife? To wrestle between keeping a companion and freeing them to live a life I was not destined to be part of? I restrained a frown. Just like all my friends, I had to trust him to go on without me.

I pulled the headband over his ears in one smooth motion, removing the bridle and tossing it aside. With a distressed whicker the stallion nudged his muzzle against my arm before turning on his tail and galloping away toward the palace. It seemed he was not leaving me for a life in the wild after all.

"Size of walnut or not, at least he knows his way home." I observed. Fondness colored my words. Kaiba snorted coltishly.

"What do you think I'm doing out here? Building sand castles?" came Kaiba's terse retort. His voice carried a tinge of anger from having almost been struck down and he grunted before stalking off again, the harsh wind tossing his coat and my cape.

I stood still and watched as the stallion vanished from my sight into the shadows cast by the thick clouds that swarmed the sky. As his graceful gallop was enveloped by the darkness of the landscape I turned to follow Kaiba.

I was not his vassal or his brother and refused to jog after him as they would have done. Kaiba seemed to have anticipated this. He crossed his arms and feigned boredom while he waited silently for me to reach his side atop the peak of the next dune, eyes watching me like a desert hawk. I took my time ascending the dune and smirked as his expression grew more irate with each and every unhurried step.

I was about to ask him what he was out here looking for, but found the words were unnecessary. From atop the dune's summit I spotted the sleek metal form of one of Kaiba's creations wallowing in the moonlight. We set off toward it in tandem.

**Sphinx Teleia**

Hieracosphinx chirped as I ran my fingers across his exquisite sandy pelt to calm him. I missed my leonine form. Its gorgeous fur. Its sharp claws - a body every bit as predatory as my beautiful hungry heart.

"What is, my lovely?" I questioned him, bucking his beak with heel of my hand. He shook his great head, a plump onyx feather plucking free to flutter to the floor as a fat white bird sailed into the cave, flapping it's wings above my head as it landed against the wall of the shallow little cliff-side cavern.

"What a brave little bird." I cooed, counting my blessings that my next meal had delivered itself to me with such convenience. This host body's stomach churned, caught between either nausea or hunger as my Hieracosphinx primed its claws to attack. "It's mine!" I roared at it, the beast taking a sharp step backwards away from me. Frightened of it's own master? How quaint. It best be. The bird was mine! Mine to devour and mine alone!

"Control yourself." The dove said sternly, deeply spoken words rumbling out of its stubby yellow beak.

The voice of Andro Sphinx's new host was easy to recognize even when spouting out of his transformed body. I believe I preferred it when he had the head of a lion. At least then he could do little more than growl. The words that came out of his mouth were so very tedious.

"Pah. It's you." I greeted, disappointment at a meal denied flying free and unchecked in my tone as my host's memories recognized the sorcery of Magical Pigeon that cloaked Andro Sphinx in his current form.

"What were you thinking?" He questioned, accusation in his tone and quite unnecessary and woefully amusing in his tiny avian form.

I buffed my fingernails against the priestess's robe. I'd have to find one that exposed a little more flesh. "I cannot read your simple mind. Speak it or be silent."

"Why attack Seto Kaiba so soon, with so many potential onlookers?" He demanded. "You should have waited for him to fall asleep."

"Killing him in his sleep would have been boring." I hummed. I wanted to see those pretty blue eyes flare and dim as I took his life. Andro Sphinx's beady black bird eyes narrowed as I quirked my lips at him and pulled them back. A smile was but a baring of teeth, after all.

He had no imagination, nor appetite; of course he would not be able to understand. So too was he underestimating me and ignoring the fine blow I had stuck with my makeshift claws before making my exit.

"You revealed yourself, and almost me, far too soon." He snarled. "If we are to win this duel and earn the right to walk in the living world then you must exercise more intelligence."

"Enough of your scheming." I bid my unwelcome 'team mate' with boredom. "Let us just bleed them dry." The idea tantalized my very soul.

"No." He replied dully. Predictable. Thankfully in his little bird form to say a single word seemed difficult. "The Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba are formidable." Of that I was aware – our Master was not easily bested and yet defeat had been delivered to him once more thanks to the little Pharaoh's meddling. "They must be weakened, then eliminated swiftly when the time to strike is right." Andro Sphinx continued to lecture, apparently determined to continue to squawk into my ear if it meant reminding me not to stray from the path that would return the both of us to the living realm. Of course I would not, though I may well bend it to my own delight. He would have to indulge me that much. Yet reluctantly I conceded that his idea was not without merit.

"Very well." I drawled. Let them expend their energy against us and once they were broken, bloodied and wounded we would have no difficulty in claiming victory in this contest for life. Oh, to tread the mortal world once more. The idea of returning there excited me! To run free through the streets and tear the delicate, sumptuous flesh from the bones of real beings. Yes, yes! My mouth salivated at the imagining of such a bountiful feast. Winning this duel and being released in the living world would be a glorious reward!

"But what of the Master?" I questioned, twirling a lock of priestess's hair around a finger and watching the strands reflect the light. As those summoned by his magic if we lived then so too did he, yet I sensed him not. The sensational weight of his command that echoed in my very soul was woefully absent.

"Drained by his defeat in the palace." My tiresome companion replied dutifully. "Likely taking shelter within a new host."

"Then must we continue in his stead." I mused. After all, it would not do to disappoint the Master. He may discipline us if he were to discover we had been lackadaisical in his absence.

"' _We_ ' must do nothing." Andro Sphinx countered.

"Oh?"

"' _You_ ' have revealed yourself, so you shall pursue them. I shall remained hidden."

"Pah!" I waved my hand at him, unimpressed. "Fine." Did he believe leaving them to me was some sort of punishment? He was mistaken. They were just more prey for me to play with! It was a proposition made all the tantalizing by the delectable danger of the task. The young king was the most powerful sorcerer in this world and I could not forget that and become careless, lest I be destroyed. Fortunately I was better at creating opportunities to strike than Andro Sphinx seemed to believe. His lack of faith in my abilities was so terribly amusing.

"Well then, _I_ shall get underway." I cooed, flexing my host's fingers as I plundered her mind for a new spell.

"Good. Do." Ano replied. He flapped his wings experimentally, priming his feathers for flight. No doubt he intended to watch and gather his precious insights while I fought our foes head on. The rat.

I tapped my finger against my lips in thought.

How best to begin?

Divide them and then hunting them down when they were alone and unsuspecting had an appeal. Playing more with Seto Kaiba also stirred my interest. The absence of trust between the two boys was also prime for abuse. Perhaps with a little stimulus they might even fight each other on my behalf?

Such choices. Each as varied and appetizing as the last.

I ran my tongue over my host's teeth. "I will start with something simple to test the thickness of their fat."

A fluttering storm of scarabs would be perfect.


	11. Chapter 11

**Kaiba**

He circled around the pod with interest.

I let him do whatever he wanted. I'd messed up his private afterlife and now he had skyscrapers ruining the view from his dirt castle. This wasn't what was supposed to happen and until I fixed it he had every right to be pissed at me, though like hell I'd tell him that. It didn't matter that Pegasus had set me up and the Egyptian gods were bullshit, I would own the consequences of my actions. I always did. If he wanted to circle the pod then he could circle the pod. If he wanted to punch me in the face then he could punch me in the face. If he wanted to inspect the damage then he could do that too.

I ran my fingers over the tender spot on my cheek, retracing the movement of his fingertips, wondering why I'd bothered to chart their course so vividly in my mind. Whatever. It didn't matter. The whole scene had been just surreal; charging up to me on some half feral horse with his cape flying and his hair stranding on end. His jewelry had flashed in the moonlight and the skirt of his tunic had rumpled half way up his thighs as his muscles flexed to keep the horse from running off. He looked like something out of the novel of a lonely house wife.

Completely distracting.

I was damn glad to get rid of the horse. Letting it run off into the desert didn't seem smart but whatever put as much distance between me and that eleven hundred pounds of crazy suited my purposes. Atem seemed confident the thing would find its way back.

"Shit."

He completed his inspection and came to stand beside me as I swore.

The wind had ripped off part of the tarp. Two of the fasteners had popped loose. It wasn't enough to expose the whole pod, but the draft had managed to blow at least two feet of sand into the cockpit. I pulled the cover away enough to get a better look. Most of it had collected in the seat and the instruments looked largely sand-free. It wouldn't take long to clear most of it out. I scooped up a handful, weighing it in my palm until part of the sand in the cockpit shifted slightly and my body reacted before I even had time to fully register the threat.

I must have looked like a fucking idiot, suddenly jumping three feet backwards. "What the-!" I heard myself yell. Atem glanced into the cockpit with a muted curiosity and then fucking smirked back at me.

Gozaburo had 'conditioned' me not to react to outwardly fear... But it was a training that applied to man-made terrors. In his own way Atem had helped with the rest. The nightmares of his penalty games had toughened my resistance to all the other kinds of 'monster' Gozaburo's training had missed, but there was still a special place in hell for arachnids.

"Come now Kaiba, it's just a little scorpion." His smug tone made me want to hit something, and the challenging taunt made me want to want to throw the thing down the back of his tabard and see how he liked it. Who willfully adds something like that into their own afterlife? That question was good enough to ask.

"Why are there scorpions in 'heaven'?" I managed to hiss out from between my teeth, making sure to make my tone as scornful as physically possible.

Atem's smug look shifted slightly, his eyes opening a little wider in surprise at the question before narrowing into pensiveness. So he didn't know either then. Wasn't that just great. "I don't control what's here." He settled on. I guess that explained Ishizu and the rest of the odd cast of misfit minions, and the lack of Yugi and his entourage. Now that was something to be thankful for. At least while I was stuck here I wouldn't have to listen to another one of their simpering, sycophantic bullshit friendship sermons.

I snorted at the Pharaoh, amused. "Nice to know death's as much of a scam as life."

Atem remained silent as he leaned into the cockpit and deftly plucked out the scorpion by its tail. He did it easily - it was a well practiced motion. It was unsettling. He could get a tan, wear loincloths and parade around in mountains of tacky golden jewelry but it was only now after seeing how suited he was to the environment that his Egyptian heritage seemed credible to me. I found the thought uncomfortable so I pushed it away.

The Pharaoh knelt down to place the scorpion gently onto the desert sand, noting "Seto doesn't care for them either" as he watched the scorpion begin to creep away. I chose not to dignify that with an answer. I'd already settled in my mind that me and my fake couldn't be the same - it was the Pharaoh's turn to wake up and catch a clue. It took me two strides to get in range and I kicked the fucking thing as hard as I could, launching it into the distance like a golf ball just to prove the point, and because like hell I was ever gonna have allowed to keep crawling around near my equipment

Atem's eyes followed it as the scorpion jetted off on it's all-inclusive surprise one way flight to nowhere. I thought he'd shout at me for that, but he didn't. Instead there was a pause. A weird lull between us.

Even though it was still hotter than hell a dampness was setting in as the desert began to cool at night. I caught a bead of sweat with my thumb and wiped it away before it could slide any further down my neck. I'd hated the dry heat in the day. It figured I'd also hate the humidity at night. The afterlife needed a climate control system. It would be easier to fix my Duel Disk while it was cooler though, that was for certain but I didn't need the screw driver slipping out of my sweaty hands to gore me in the eye or something equally stupid.

My fingers reflexively brushed aside my jacket to get at the chest pocket without a second thought. That made me pause.

Looks like I'd officially made a 'habit' out of it then. That was the sign that it was time to give it up after all this nonsense was over with. I pulled out the KC branded lighter and matching cigarette case. This coat was tailored recently - it had a pocket specifically designed to fit the slim aluminum box without altering the fit of the material against my body. I hadn't even noticed it was still in there.

I took a long slow drag and huffed the smoke out into the breeze like a dragon, watching the wind carry it away.

There was a rustle of linen behind me. I glared at Atem just for just existing. His eyes narrowed in challenge, before flicking them to the cigarette in my mouth. He arched an eyebrow at it.

"You smoke now?" He questioned, taking his eyes off the offending object to surveil our surroundings like a lion observing his domain. His tone sounded dubious which was rich. What did he think he knew about me anyway?

"Maybe I've always smoked." I snapped back, the taste of an argument sounded really palatable right now and I didn't want to be lectured about this by someone who for all intensive purposes must now be younger than me. I smirked, bitterly, at the ridiculousness of the thing. It's not like I couldn't afford the habit.

"No, you haven't. You've started recently." He relied, so confidently that it was insulting. I had to curb the urge to blow smoke in his face just to piss him off. It might have even taken away the smell of horse sweat while I was at it.

"You don't look or smell like you do." the Pharaoh commented factually as his feet kneaded the sand beneath him, then he smirked at me like he was about to reveal a winning card. "You don't care what anyone else thinks, so you must be going to lengths to hide because Mokuba doesn't know yet."

"Tch. Lucky guess." Scowling at him could only communicate so much of my irritation that he'd figured all that out so quickly. Smoking was a habit I didn't want Mokuba thinking was worth picking up. Roland was the only one who knew so far. His sunglasses had saved him from immediate dismissal because I swore he raised his eyebrows at me from behind them like I was some lowlife teenage punk acting out.

"There's no 'luck' necessary, Kaiba" Atem mocked with a smug grin.

"Whatever." I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of my reaction.

We leaned back against the pod to watch the moon in silence. His smug banter felt much easier than most of our other conversations today had been, or maybe that was just the nicotine going to work. Might as well summon a monster or two to break up all the calm before things start to feel 'relaxed'.

The device on my arm flashed as I thought about it. I was going to blame that on the damage to the Duel Disk interfering with the signal feed to the neural up-link until Atem's did the same beside me; though without a constant power drain his unit still had enough juice left to successfully render the holographic UI and tell us why.

"A card was just played onto Anubis's side of the field." He observed and began swiping through the Duel Disk's logs.

I waited for him to tell me what it was but he just frowned at the read out, squinting at it like it was written in a foreign language. Technically, to him it now was. Watching the Pharaoh try to stare the words into comprehension wasn't as amusing as it sounded so I turned away from him to finish my cigarette. As I flicked the end of it away into the sand my eye caught on something weird. I could barely see it against the night, but a wave of something thick and fragmented was darkening the sand and clouds across the dunes, increasing with size as it gained ground toward us and churning uneasily in the moonlight.

"Tch. Is that a sandstorm?" I scoffed. I hated this damn place.

The Pharaoh glanced upwards towards the horizon. "I don't believe so." He finally replied.

Yeah I got his point– sandstorms didn't usually buzz as they got closer.

"Sphinx Teleia has activated Swarm of Scarabs." He announced, the Duel Disk's display promptly closing down at his unspoken instruction.

"Sounds biblical." I muttered; every bit as sarcastically as possible. Swarm of Scarabs was a one thousand defense power monster; small potatoes. "Blue-Eyes can deal with that in one shot." Blue-Eyes could deal with that three times over in one shot, the math being what it was.

"I think it may take a few more shots than that." Atem noted as his arm snaked to his Duel Disk, a card generating for him instantly. I had no doubt whatever he was thinking would do the job – probably Dust Tornado or Mystical Space Typhoon – but I wanted to test a theory. He stilled as I caught his wrist in my hand and looked back at me questioningly. "Save your card. I wanna test something."

My Duel Disk had summoned in Blue-Eyes and Kaiser Sea Horse just as expected, but they hadn't been holograms. They'd been more than that and I needed to confirm it.

"Test? For what?" The Pharaoh blinked at me curiously as his dueling pose relaxed and whatever it was he'd drawn vanished in a small burst of of golden light.

"To see if these things are real or fake." I replied bluntly, locking my eyes on the approaching monster. There was a crap load of difference in being swarmed by real flesh-eating insects and being swarmed by holograms, even if they were solid vision. Maybe that sort of detail was too academic for the Pharaoh and all his mystic mumbo-jumbo but it mattered to me. I needed to know what we were really up against.

"If they're still holograms then they'll automatically despawn after ten minutes." I explained.

I'd designed all solid vision projections that way deliberately, to avoid misuse or damaging the components of the Duel Disks. Ten minutes was the maximum time for a single summoning to last outside of standard duel parameters and since right now the monsters couldn't figure out if they were going to be real biological lifeforms or holograms this was as good an opportunity to test that out as any.

"They're likely both." Atem stated, choosing now to start peddling his annoying hocus pocus while keeping his eyes trained on the swarm. "Anubis's magic has brought your holograms to life before." He reminded me.

"Tch. I don't accept that." I scoffed back with bored incredulousness. Either something was real or it was fake. Alive, or dead. It couldn't be both. That wasn't an option.

"How it is that you can accept certain things like the fate of the world hanging on the outcome of what the modern world views as a trading card game with ease while taking issue with things many times less preposterous?" The Pharaoh quipped haughtily at my side.

"Because I'm not a gullible idiot like Yugi and the rest of those dweebs." I snarked back, not in the mood to be challenged by his nonsense.

The space between the Pharaoh's eyebrows pinched like that comment had pissed him off but he didn't let it break his poker face. He wasn't the kind of guy to let trash-talk get to him while there was an opponent in his face. "So what do you propose?" Atem asked, the picture of calm despite the low and steadily building hum of a cloud of murderous scarabs.

I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder to the pod behind us.

"Will it protect us?" He asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Are you kidding?" That set my teeth on edge. My pod was designed for inter-dimensional travel, like hell it couldn't stand up to a couple of holograms or bugs - whichever. Just exactly what sort of amateur engineer did he take me for? "Don't underestimate me."

I snatched up the back of his tunic in my hand and yanked him toward the pod, pushing him through the gap in the tarp to fall haphazard into the cockpit. He righted himself as he collided with the seat, composing the layers of his outfit back into place. He shot me a reproachful look before scooting over, giving me the chance to climb in after him and secure the fasteners for the tarpaulin sheet back into place to seal the cockpit shut as the swarm hit. The sound of thousands of wings beating howled over the tarpaulin barrier, shaking it in place and raging against it but unable to pierce or dislodge the opaque sheet. I relaxed a little into my half of the seat, then recoiled as I remembered the very sand I was now sat in had the potential to be scorpion-infested.

"If there were any more in here they'd have made their presence known." Atem commented idly as I arched my body off of the seat to check. That was fine for him to say since he was sat on the bit without any fucking sand, but like hell I was going to debase myself anymore by writhing around like a hooked fish trapped between the tarp above us and the seat below.

Atem shifted busily, distracted as he tried to wrangle the folds of his cloak into looking dignified. I guess all that natural poise wasn't so effortless after all. That amused me, until I spotted the hatch to the cargo hold was on his side. Damn it.

Reaching across a half-naked guy wasn't an appealing proposition. His skirt was riding up high enough to bare his muscular upper thighs and I was running the risk of seeing something I really didn't want to. I found it awkward – though I'd never tell him that - he didn't even seem to care that he was half-exposed.

"Lean back." I told him and he did it without much of a second thought, still preening as he did so.

I leaned over him and stretched out to reach the cargo compartment on his side of the pod. It brought me much closer to him than I liked; close enough to smell the musky notes of his sweat and his slightly sweet honeyed breath under the stink of horses and close enough to hear his breathing hitch for who knows why. He probably hated the closeness as much as I did.

"Damn it."

My fingers probed the vault cavity and as they failed to snag the thing I was expecting them to find, forcing me to lean a little further over Atem so I could actually see inside. I shivered a little as his breath ghosted across my ear, not familiar enough with the strange ticklish feeling it elicited to squash the feeling right out of the gate.

Focus. Just get the job done.

I gritted my teeth as I glared into the small cargo area and finally managed to catch the handle of the compact toolkit between my fingers. That took long enough! I didn't like people other than Mokuba being so close to me but I'd endured it enough throughout my life to know distracting myself was the way to go. I threw myself back into the seat as I popped the case open and pulled out one of the smaller screwdrivers and queued up a systems diagnostic on my Duel Disk. Keeping myself busy with this crap gave me the perfect excuse to ignore the Pharaoh as he side-eyed me for a minute with an expression I didn't care to try and figure out.

It took a few minutes to pry the chassis away from the unit and a few more to properly survey the damage but just like I thought, my Duel Disk was a mess inside. It was no wonder the power was draining at triple speed. I could patch the wires; maybe even over-clock the power cell, but I had no way of fixing the smashed blades of the internal fan. It was too small and too specialized. I'd designed it myself and without a 3D printer there was no way of replacing it.

Great. So much for preventing overheating.

The power counter ticked down to 13% as the systems diagnostic sapped out what that was left. It hadn't been so processor intensive in tests but everything here seemed to be out to mess with me. Whatever. Once the sun was up the solar panels would recharge the units, until then we'd have to play smart. Rendering larger monsters was power intensive which knocked-out the majority of my deck so I'd have to rely on the Pharaoh's Duel Disk to do the heavy-lifting. In hindsight that meant siphoning off of all that energy from Atem's unit to call up my Blue-Eyes hadn't been the smartest play, but it had been worth it. Whatever was going on here to make the holograms come alive I had to grant it that it'd made my Blue-Eyes White Dragon perfect – exactly as it should be, just like back in my childhood dreams when I'd go flying through the sky on its back away. Stupid as it was I'd been waiting for that dragon ride my whole damn life.

It had made hitting the sand face-first as Blue-Eyes vanished underneath me a whole lot worse. That sudden disappearance had shaken me up. Of all the things to randomly disappear on me in my life I hadn't expected my Blue-Eyes to ever fall into that category. Or not again, anyway. Not after the forth rejected me. The only positive thing to report was that just like my Kaiser Sea Horse the malfunction of my Duel Disk had made the cards de-spawn without every being destroyed. _Technically_ both of my monsters were still on the field and in the game. _Technically_ if I could patch up my Duel Disk enough I could call back my dragon... but I couldn't stand the idea of watching it fade away from me again. The risk outweighed the reward. Once I was back in the real world I'd come up with a more stable alternative - maybe design a whole new jet to have any hope at recapturing the feeling. Something with seat belts and a spot for Mokuba.

Atem shifted beside me, still somehow always able to distract me no matter how busy I made myself or how determined I was to ignore him. I didn't want to but I ended up covertly watching him in the reflection of the pod's hull as I waiting for my Duel Disk's diagnostic to finish.

He was almost done flattening and straightening out his outfit to his liking. His fingers flexed purposefully and worked at the juncture where his cape hung from his shoulders. Each fingernail was clipped a bit shorter than I remembered but the digits were no less long and powerful. The motion of them drawing cards or pointing his monsters forward to battle was something I was pleased to have managed to replicate in the AI version of him. It was part of the show; part of the package. Like he could read my mind Atem began using them to pull and stroke the section of cape that hung over his shoulders to make it lie smoothly. They seemed broader here than they had been in Domino, or possibly they were the same but the added muscle and tone just made them look that way. Then again, that had been Yugi's body; this most certainly wasn't. Sure, the absolutely impossible hair was the same - still looking more like it belonged as plumage on the tail of a genetically engineered peacock rather than a human head - but his eyes were different. Then again they always had been. They were the clue that let me figure out each time they switched over. Yugi's wide-eyed kiddy look always gave him away. Atem's were darker, deeper, edging between tones of bordeaux and blood. Then of course there was the completely foreign complexion. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. I was used to seeing the Pharaoh look a certain way; it was logical a day with him like this couldn't override years of previous conditioning. It made him look alien and exotic. It made all this Egyptian nonsense impossible to ignore. Not that there was any chance of ignoring it now that I was here, stuck with him.

I crossed my legs and he crossed his arms as I sat back, leaning into my half of the leather interior while he perched equally uncomfortably on his half of the seat. The pod was only designed for a single occupant so it was a damn good thing both of us had a tidy body weight. Our knees were touching in an arrangement that pleased neither of us but the breadth of our shoulders meant they were the only other parts of us to jostle against each other. Because he was such a short-ass his shoulders ended up digging into my side instead.

We sat in an awkward silence, watching the tarp above our heads flutter and strain as the swarm whistled over it. It was tense. Atem was watching me out of the corner of his eye and pretending not to which wasn't helping. We'd only ever had a few moments alone over the years and 'alone' was highly subjective in retrospect since he'd been using Yugi as a host body. That had to be why this felt so uncomfortable.

Tch. How ridiculous.

This was the guy I had risked hopping dimensions to duel again, but without a battlefield between us I wasn't even sure I wanted to say anything to him. I'd hunted him, visualized him, analyzed every memory of every part of him in my mind to rebuild him in holograms and then worked on him for nights on end until the proxy was so life-like it could pass the Turing test and then lecture me on the validity of including Kuriboh in a championship Duel Monsters deck. I'd wanted him here - the real thing right in front of me, unable to escape, with none of his friends tagging along to demand his attention, no world to save or vague magical threat to somehow deal with - focused on just me and our battle until it was finally done. It figured that now that there was nothing competing for his undivided attention I had no idea what to do with it. Instead a tension lingered so thick in the air that it had me debating jumping back out of the pod and taking my chances with the swarm instead.

Atem cleared his throat as if to speak, and then said nothing. Usually he could never get enough of his own voice – now he'd turned mysteriously mute. So damn distracting.

I breathed in the smell of the cockpit's interior and tried to blot him out of my mind. The upholstery smelt the same as my jet and blimp and limousines and half the vehicles in my garage - like new cars. I tried to sink into that smell, only to have notes of gammy horse sweat clinging to Atem ruin it.

It was a smell I knew well, and hated.

Gozaburo had bred championship thoroughbreds. I associated the smell with him first, and with drowning second. The memory surprised me with its vividness. I recalled with perfect clarity the smooth motion of Gozaburo rolling up his sleeve to the elbow, snaking his hand around the back of my neck to snatch at my hair and then pushing my head under the water of a stable trough. I was twelve. I'd been tired. It had been unexpected.

Gozaburo had denied me sleep for several days, finding some sick delight in trying to make me as off balance as possible before taking me to a business associates livery yard. It was a mutual stroking of egos and feigning of interest, the sort of extra-circular activity that men in his circle knew was part of art of a satisfactory business negotiation. His idiot acquaintance had shown off his thoroughbreds and Gozaburo had smirked as he returned the favor, deliberately clapping me on my bad shoulder like a promising race horse with that grin I despised.

I took one look at the beasts as their conversation washed over me and I hated each and every one of them.

They stood passively in their wooden boxes, barred from leaving not by a gate, electric fence, or hostage situation, but by only a thick corded rope across the entrance of their cages. They were each bigger, stronger and faster than the two men babbling about them across the courtyard. I hated their inability to conceive of the freedom they could so easily escape into. All it would take would be to duck the rope and run and never look back.

Gozaburo's conversation suddenly paused and in the brief lull in their conversation I realized I had been supposed to say something. I had missed my mark and ruined his little pantomime of being 'the perfect heir'.

It didn't matter that we had an audience. Hell, maybe it was because of that reason.

The sleeve rolled up and my head was forced down into the water. He caught me off-guard and held me there even as I thrashed and struggled.

Without air my lungs began to cramp and then burn like they were firing up to explode. I'd known the medical effects of respiratory distress; blackout, hypoxia, brain death. Listing them like they were on a surprise exam was second nature as the darkness enveloped me. My sight turned slowly to a field of black, like a device switching off. He pulled me out a minute later, almost yanking my left arm out of its socket for the second time that week. He had waited for the panic to set in; for me to taste the idea of dying right then and there surrounded by the smell of horse sweat and statues of ridiculous prancing ponies. Almost long enough for me to betray Mokuba's belief in my determination.

He waited for me to get my breath back as I sat panting on the cobble stones at the yard's foundation and then wrenched me up by the arm and back handed me across the face.

I had gotten his suit wet.

"Don't struggle next time, boy." He'd spat.

I gritted my teeth at the memory as that sickening taste from before welled up on the back of my tongue, like iron and rotten meat.

As if.

Life is the struggle.

I clipped my stroll down memory lane short and felt that old hatred rush through me like an electrical current. I wanted an outlet. Fortunately an ever-reliable one was trapped in here with me.

**Atem**

I pulled my cloak around me in heavy waves and arranged myself carefully.

There was a heat on my face, but Kaiba was thankfully too busy to notice anything. The Gods were merciful to grant me his ignorance. I could scarcely imagine his reaction to... my reaction. Why him leaning so far over me had prompted such a response I couldn't fathom. My blood had eagerly gone astray to a part of my anatomy that, while perfectly natural, was rather unbecoming of a Pharaoh in this situation. With several slow and subtle breaths I set to work on expelling the muted scent of his sweat, deodorant and the less pleasant lingering aroma of Anubis's necrotic sludge and fresh cigarette smoke from my nose. With focus my composure began to return, and not a moment too soon. That could have been disastrous.

My mind drifted as Kaiba busied himself with his Duel Disk. He manipulated the device deftly, with the surety of skill that only its creator could wield. How a single person could harbor both such a creative mind and destructive instincts was a profound mystery. I closed my eyes to clear my mind of it. My thoughts dwelt on Kaiba too easily if given the chance and for Yugi's sake I had learned to quiet them before they could become too loud.

Perhaps that was why?

Yugi had never questioned why I had retained control of his body as we circled above Domino in Kaiba's helicopter during the Battle City Tournament. There hadn't been an opponent to beat or a duel to win; just the Kaiba brothers and myself. I'd asked him about it once, confused why he hadn't begrudged me for my overstay in his body. He'd only laughed in response and joked that it took the King of Games to deploy such a perfect strategy without realizing I'd crafted it. Yugi had understood before even I had that I'd wanted Kaiba to hear the story of my origin - to know a past I'd only just begun to discover - and trapped between Mokuba and I in the back of a helicopter Kaiba had been left with no choice but to listen to my words. Of course he had dismissed all of them as a fantasy, but it'd been pleasing to be heard.

Though largely silent, that helicopter ride had been comfortable. Companionable even. This silence was not. I wanted to end it and opened my mouth to speak but then closed it again as I realized I couldn't think of anything to say. I wanted to clear the air, but had no idea how to begin. If there was any comfort to be taken it was that Kaiba seemed as awkward in this situation as I was. His eyes kept flicking around the pod as though seriously debating escaping back into the desert, scarab swarm or not. It seemed we were equally ill-suited to creating casual conversation. That was reassuring, if not humbling.

He leaned back into the seat and inhaled quietly as his Duel Disk projected some sort of loading screen and I closed my eyes; trying to discipline my thoughts as Kaiba seemed to be attempting to do. Despite the tense atmosphere the raging swarm created a chaotic harmony; the battering of the scarabs against the cover almost matched the beating of my heart and the steady rise and fall of Kaiba's chest against my shoulder.

I opened my eyes and glanced to him as that cadence stalled.

Kaiba was holding his breath and staring blankly at something I couldn't see, his lips down-turned and pinched together into a thin white line. I perked an eyebrow at him, but his concentration was focused solely on something I couldn't see. Abruptly his blue eyes sliced over to mine filled with a darkness that would have compelled me to change places with Yugi in an instant should such a look have been leveled at him. I stared back without blinking, sensing the coming of a very different sort of attack.

"Why do you allow yourself to be trapped in this bullshit lie?" He questioned sharply, his tone demeaning and full of accusation. "Nothing here is real. It's just another prison." He pressed, leering at me unpleasantly and swatted a hand at the puzzle around my neck without touching it. "Must feel great to go from a studio apartment to a private kingdom in just one move but it's just an illusion, Pharaoh." My fingers reflexively dug into the leather seat beneath me as his words stirred my temper. "You were supposed to be different." He raged on "I never thought you were weak enough to only consent to live life in a padded cell." His jaw snapping back closed as he finished hissing at me. I could almost taste his sudden eagerness to fight.

My anger stirred as his eyes gleamed coldly and full of vigor. How dare he. The hypocrite! He had been picking fights all day and I had wasted my energy denying them. Now he attacked my afterlife and all those whom dwelt within it? Very well; if he was so very desperate for us to argue then I would grant his wish!

"You dare to call me a prisoner?" I thundered, unable to hold myself back from his vicious challenge as his venomous temper poisoned the blood in my veins. It seemed I would have to correct him yet again. "I fulfilled my destiny and now reap my reward; it is you who are caged by your own petty hatreds!"

He sneered at me, eyes narrowing. "Tch!"

I continued without pause "You speak of only moving forward, yet are so unable to leave the past behind that you've made all this just to seek it out" I waved my hand around the interior of the pod. "It's time to move on, Kaiba!"

He laughed nastily, the barking noise mirthless and bitter. "Fuck you and fuck Yugi. I'll say when it's 'time to move on'!"

It sounded as though there was some history there, but it was irrelevant as of now. "Is this to become a yearly event then?" I parried, determined to meet his intensity with my own. "Something I can plan my nation's calendar by? Seto Kaiba intruding into my world to corrupt it with his foolish ambition!"

"You're the one that left!" He roared back, his rage dwarfing the sound of the scarab swam outside. "You're the one that ran out on -" his tirade cut off in a guttural snarl, apparently not knowing how to finish his own sentence. Did the belligerent idiot really believe our rivalry to be worth more than destiny?

"Ran out on what?" I pressed, shouting back as loudly as possible. "I fulfilled my destiny."

He scoffed contemptibly, objecting to the idea of 'destiny' without words. "We didn't finish our business." Kaiba bit out, suddenly dropping the volume of his voice to all but hiss in my ear. "So here I fucking am." He added, looking away from me to glare at the corner of the pod. "To finish this."

"Our rivalry is not that important." I countered, lowering my voice slightly. It was precious. Exciting. Through our rivalry I had honed my skills and my conviction and I would not have been able to earn my place in the afterlife without those lessons, but like all things it had been destined to end. It was not so important it could escape that fate.

His shoulders stiffened. "It is to me!" he shouted toward the corner of the pod, no longer meeting my gaze. He grimaced as his words seem to bounce around our mutual cell as a deafening echo that only we could hear. He ducked his head back to his Duel Disk, smacking it with his hand as the loading bar it projected failed to complete at the speed his temper demanded.

It was easy to be swept up in the force of Kaiba's raw fury but much harder when a note of hurt crept in at the corners. Battle was fulfilling to Kaiba, as it was to me, but was it truly that valuable? Was our rivalry such a treasure to him that he would go to this length, while so disposable to me that I had discarded it without a second thought? Fate had beckoned me home and I'd had no doubts in my actions...

He stopped abusing his Duel Disk and glared out across the desert."How can I measure if I've changed when the metric for my success is gone?" He muttered, loud enough for me to hear and quiet enough for our shouting match to end.

"Are you so unable to trust yourself?" I questioned in a voice both stern and curious.

He let the question fall between us like a lead weight and tethered to that weight was another long silence. It seemed I had infringed upon the territory of a topic that was nearing being too personal to him for continuation.

Not for the first time since Kaiba's appearance in my world I wished for Yugi's council. He seemed to understand best how to intuit what Kaiba needed – now best to deal with him. I'd learned that the day I'd condemned Kaiba to death atop Pegasus's castle as he beckoned me to slit his throat with my cards. Had Yugi not interceded there would be no Kaiba sat beside me to argue with. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to channel even a fraction of Yugi's temperance.

"Yugi is a brilliant duelist. My better, in many ways." I noted, bringing my voice back to it's normal tone and volume with great effort. "He could easily take my place as..." I trailed off, not knowing the appropriate verbiage.

"As my rival?" Kaiba finished for me. I supposed to Kaiba that term was most accurate so I nodded. Kaiba continued to refused to look at me and crossed his arms to match his legs, a defensive barrier made with every line of his body. "Tch. Pass. Besides, he cut contact the minute you skipped town."

I sighed. I had no doubt that Yugi had a good reason for doing so but that was about the worst way his continuing friendship with Kaiba could have played out.

"Apparently it's too hard to reach me, despite the fact the goon-squad managed to call through to me just fine when you all wanted a free flight out of America." Kaiba voice came out amused and scornful, the words clearly spoken in sarcasm as he smirked to himself ruefully. "Turns out for all the preaching, 'friendship' just means being forgotten about until someone needs a taxi ride."

I frowned. "Kaiba, that's not true."

"Yes it is." He stated, his tone not angry or aggressive but matter-of-fact and immovable. That was even worse.

I arched my knee and leaned forward to coil my arms around it. I couldn't see all the cards in his hand, but the one or two he'd revealed made it clear than on some level my passing had wounded Kaiba. My first instinct was to deceive myself and say I hadn't thought he would care so much. Yet deep down I'd known it would. I'd known he would be angry. I'd expected him to be enraged by it all and then eventually once that fury had run its course I'd assumed he would move on, just as he'd always shouted to me he would across our duels. He hadn't. I didn't know what to do with the information. What response was appropriate? It was difficult to judge his demeanor when I was stuck staring at the side of his head.

I leaned forward in the seat, trying to get a better look at his face. He hadn't turned back to me since his earlier outburst. Without looking at me his arm lashed out across my body to bar me leaning forward any further, returning my back to the backrest.

"Get lost! There's sand in my eye." He snapped irritably.

Ah.

He was-

Kaiba was-

Ah.

I looked away, wanting to help him shield his pride.

"That's understandable. There's a desert outside." I agreed as neutrally as possible, the words lame even to my ears and judging by Kaiba's scornful snort of amusement I surmised it had sounded equally awkward to him. I hugged my leg to my chest a little tighter. I doubted there were any words of comfort I could give that he would accept.

"Departing from your world was my fate. It was never my intention to -" hurt "-wound you." I settled on, the words staggered and ungainly. He tilted his head my way a little to show he was listening. Now partially turned toward me the remaining moonlight caught the very edge of a long and silent tear track staining the length of his thin face. "I'm sorry for doing so" I added.

He hummed tonelessly. "You couldn't wound me if you tried." He boasted with a bravado that we both knew must be false given the circumstances.

"Trying to get you kicked out of here was a mistake" Kaiba grumbled eventually, more to himself than me. A peace offering of sorts, I could only imagine. As unsuited as we both were to conversation, it would seem we were equally so to apologies.

"We will correct that-" I began only to have something so dangerously close to reassurance thrown in my face by Kaiba's brash interruption of "- ' _We_ '? I'll win this duel my own. I don't need your help."

In spite of the situation I found myself smirking at the surly response. "Then it's fortunate that I don't require your consent to provide it."

He snorted and unwound one of his crossed arms to tiredly rub at his eyes. With a small flash of cyan light and a soft chirp his Duel Disk finished restarting. I was content, if not relieved, to resume sitting in silence as Kaiba's attention was drawn back into repairing it. Another round of 'conversation' ran the risk of setting us at odds again and I didn't wish to spend midnight to dawn battling with every half-felt hurt buried in Kaiba's heart. I didn't know how to win such a fight; or if either of us even could 'win'.

* * *

**AN:** So while I was watching the English dub of DSoD I was really struck by how much older Kaiba's VA sounded in certain scenes, particularly when the character is talking to his computer on the Space Station he sounds a bit hoarse. Realistically speaking I know that's just because it's been a long time since the original series aired and the VA is now a lot older, but it gave me the idea that Kaiba could have started smoking to mesh that vocal change back into the character.


	12. Chapter 12

**Mokuba**

The street was quiet as our limo pulled up.

Since gaming and gamers were the major sources of tourism the provincial laws in Domino were designed to protect minors from outside interference so I didn't have to worry about the media poking their noses into our business. Most knew better than to take on anything with the Kaiba name attached to it. The privacy was great, but you know, when everyone turns a blind eye to someone it eventual cuts both ways if it turns out they ever need help.

"Closed fer a private exhibition?" A familiar voice read downwind from me as I waited for the security team to give the museum the 'okay'. Just because Seto wasn't around didn't mean I'd flunk out on all his safety procedures even if they were a bit much.

"I guess we'll have to come back tomorrow." A softer voice added, a little surprised. "Oh hey, isn't that Kaiba's-"

"Mokuba, over here!" Joey shouted at the top of his lungs with Yugi grinning beside him even though he'd been interrupted. He waved at me from across the street as I loitered outside the museum's main entrance, his crazy yellow hair swaying with him. Yugi raised his hand in a more dignified and lower key greeting but beamed a smile at me just as intense. I smiled back. I couldn't help it.

"Hey kiddo, long time no see. Nice do-" Joey greeted, the words falling out of his mouth between a shout of "Hey! I'm walkin' 'ere!" As he totally just jaywalked across the street to me and got honked at by a car.

"It's better than yours" I winked at him as he came to stop safely in front of me with Yugi checking the street at least three times before deciding it was okay to cross and jogging to Joey's side. "Heee." Was Joey's only reply with this big cheesy grin as he ruffled my hair. Yugi was out of breath by the time he crossed the distance to us.

"Hi Mokuba" he chirped, and it was so freakin' easy to want to match that enthusiasm.

"Hi Yugi" I grinned, smirking a little as he loosened up the collar of his shirt under the sun.

"Man, you're almost as tall'a Yug' now-" Joey continued, using his hand to mime drawing a line between us.

"-I saw you at the Duel Disk exhibition but didn't get a chance to say 'hello'." Yugi added. Was this what being best friends was? Being able to talk over and interrupt each other without either person getting mad? They were really nailing it, but trying to have two conversations at the same time was hectic.

"Yeah no problem, that was a crazy day." I answered Yugi. I couldn't remember the last time we'd all met up. Probably before the Pharaoh left.

"-Kaiba bettah watch out." Joey added, I guess talking to himself, but any mention of my brother snapped my attention back to the speaker - especially when it was Joey. Seto and him had this weird hate boner thing going on but just because it was mutual didn't mean he got a free pass to bad mouth my big brother.

"Hnh. Yeah..." I agreed. I frowned as they started talking about Seto and the memory of my dream came crashing back down on me like a tidal wave. I couldn't get it out of my head, especially since Pegasus's phone call. It'd confirmed what I'd been feeling in my gut since Seto had left; that something was wrong, or had gone wrong. Pegasus clearly thought the same, that was obvious based on the amount of money he must have thrown around to get these two tablets sent to Domino and reassembled so quickly. "...big brother." I was really worried about him. Beyond Pegasus, Roland and myself no one really knew or cared where Seto was right now. It would be nice to tell someone, and these guys _were_ my friends.

Joey made an uncomfortable "Uhhh" noise. I guess I'd hesitated too much and they didn't know if it was okay to ask or not. Yugi smiled at me gently and changed the subject. Or tried to anyway. It wasn't his fault Seto pretty much was 'the subject' every time you traced something all the way back to its starting point.

"So the private exhibition is for you guys, huh?" He questioned, re-reading the sign outside. I nodded, grateful for his distraction.

"It's just me. And Pegasus." I clarified. And Roland. I spotted him keeping an eye on the conversation off to the side pretending like he wasn't listening in on every word.

"Eeeeey, that creep." Joey cringed, and shuddered in a way that was either childish and genuine or really well acted for comedic effect. Yugi only raised his eyebrows up a bit in surprise at the information. Unlike these guys Pegasus hadn't exactly been shocked to hear my brother wouldn't be joining us. He probably could already guess where Seto was.

"We're ready for you, Mr. Kaiba" Roland announced, pressing his finger against his earpiece as the all clear came through. "Mr. Pegasus is already inside."

I nodded to him. That was my cue.

"I gotta go guys. Nice seeing you." I grinned at them, the picture of confidence. Or I thought so anyway. Joey and Yugi exchanged this silent look between them.

"Woah wait a minute now! Kaiba really isn't with ya?" Joey asked, jumping in front of me to stop me from making my way inside the building.

"Not today." I told him firmly. I got that he was concerned - he was a big brother too - but this was Kaiba business.

"We, uhh, we can't let ya go inta' a room with Pegasus all on yer own." Joey added hesitantly, rubbing the back of his head as I glared at him for getting in my way. He glanced to Yugi for backup. Yugi was frowning, concerned.

"That's right. I don't think your brother would like it. Does Kaiba know about this?" Yugi added. That stung. No. No Yugi, my big brother didn't know about this because he was in another dimension, because you guys couldn't give him ten seconds to say a real 'goodbye' before the Pharaoh skipped town. It pissed me off, but I didn't have time for that so I just let it all wash over me before pinning a grin on my face.

"Guys! I have my own security detail. They're not just for show you know." I assured them playfully, holding my hands up to calm them down. They cared and that was great, but I was really going to be okay. Pegasus's soul snatching days were done and actually, creepiness aside, he'd set up this private viewing of the tablet so quickly I actually believed he really did want to help out. I'd seen a lot of people do terrible things for lots of reasons but this time I felt like he had good intentions. Also he'd lose so much money if Seto randomly disappeared; KaibaCorp stocks would drop through the floor and as our biggest partner Industrial Illusions would take a hit too. I'd believe in all his sudden 'helpfulness' for that reason alone.

"Yeah but like, what if some crazy toon duel kicks off and yer need a duelist to set Pegasus straight." Joey was still talking, miming boxing the air with a few jabs as he did so. Yugi chuckled at that a bit indulgently, a drop of sweat running down his forehead as he did so.

"Er, Joey that doesn't sound very likely. Pegasus has changed a lot." Yugi replied for me.

That sounded unlikely and unbelievable, and for both of those reasons actually totally possible given these guys and the stuff they got up to. Whatever. I guess it never hurt to have back-up. And Yugi was right... Sort of. Even though Seto had never acknowledge Joey as being remotely worth respecting he actually seemed to think of Yugi pretty highly - for my brother - and he really wouldn't like me going in to see Pegasus on my own. I wasn't even technically asking for help so that was a plus.

"If you want to come that badly then you can" I decided, glancing to Roland to make the necessary security adjustments. He nodded back to me as muttered into his ear piece. "But just keep quiet, okay?"

"We can do that." Yugi agreed softly, while Joey shouted "Yeah!" and pumped his fist in the air. Yeah, so much for that.

That seemed to settle it. I glanced to Roland and made my way inside the museum. It was totally empty. You didn't make a Kaiba wait; not in this city anyway. It looked like someone had received that memo and the walkway from the museum's entrance through to the exhibition hall was cleared out for my private viewing.

"Why were you guys here anyway? Just passing through?" I suddenly wondered.

"I'm interviewin' fer jobs. Museum's lookin' fer a junior custodian." Joey relied, yawning with boredom and following behind me with his elbows up and his hands clasped behind his head in the picture of a nonchalant teenage punk, as my brother would say.

"Sooo a baby janitor?" I smirked, liking the way he almost fell over and then sputtered before shouting back "Hey! Custodian sounds way cooler!"

"Heh. If you say so." I shrugged and Yugi chuckled as we reached the doorway to the Egyptian wing of the museum.

Roland stood next to me, hand on the doorknob ready to open it up for me while our security team checked out the room one final time. He nodded to me, his sunglasses slipping down his nose a little bit in a way I guess meant they were getting a little loose after all this time.

"The room is secured, sir."

"Thanks, Roland." I stepped inside as he pulled the door open for me into a huge room with no windows and the buzzing sound of fluorescent lighting bouncing around the walls. Joey and Yugi followed, the former making a loud "Oooo" sound while the later remained politely quiet. I guess Yugi had been here before, but I sorta agreed with Joey's less subtle reaction more. Over the last few years I'd had enough ancient Egyptian-themed stuff happening around me on a bi-annual basis not to feel the need to go hunting it down at my local museum but I was kinda impressed by the sheer amount of Egyptian stuff this wing of the Domino Museum actually had. The new tablet was cordoned off in the center of the room behind a ring of plush velvet ropes and on top of that every wall was lined with display cabinets and infographics about ancient Egypt and its people. The link to Duel Monsters and Egypt was no big public secret and it was cool to see how an interest in the game fed right back into the original stuff that inspired it.

Pegasus was standing next to the stone and blocking some of it from view. He greeted me with an overly nice "Why hello, Mokuba-boy" and arched an eyebrow as my guests trickled in after me. "And I see you brought friends."

"Hey yourself." I replied as I trailed over to him. Yugi waved at Pegasus awkwardly from behind me while in the corner of my eye I saw Joey size him up like he expected this to break into a fist fight. I wouldn't have minded getting in a punch or two. I really didn't like Pegasus. It wasn't just because he'd kidnapped me and stolen my soul and my big brother's too; I was living one of those strange lives where people just took that kinda thing for granted and let it be water under the bridge after a while. Nah, it wasn't that. All of that was supposed to be a distant memory after all this Millennium Item business cooled off. It was that he'd set so many things in motion without ever even knowing about it and a lot of those things had ended badly for my big brother. I knew it wasn't fair to blame him but I still did. He might not have done even a fraction of the damage Gozaburo did, but Pegasus sure hadn't helped Seto out either.

"This is it, huh?" I noted. Roland lingered a respectable distance behind us as I took point next to Pegasus.

"Eloquently put." Pegasus confirmed, cheerful as ever. Yeah, so he was going to have to try a lot harder to get under my skin than that. Lame first pass at passive aggression.

The piece I'd seen hadn't looked all that impressive on Seto's computer screen but the photo hadn't really captured the scale of the thing now that it as assembled. I had to crane my neck and lean back a bit to get a full look at it. Between the massive scars separating it in two and the museum's reconstruction the full tablet nearly reached the ceiling of the room. Some of the stone had crumbled away where it had been damaged and the top half of it looked weathered but the carvings of my big brother and the Pharaoh were all that really mattered and they'd survived intact. Blue-Eyes and the Dark Magician were at their backs and it looked like they were supposed to be dueling in a big wheat field. It was hard to tell with the finer details worn off.

"Why's it so banged up?' I asked out loud.

Pegasus tossed his hair over his shoulder and hummed. "Well now, let's see. The working theory is that the tablet was deliberately broken up into pieces."

"Grandpa actually told me about this." Yugi added enthusiastically. He looked up at the ceiling as though he was trying to remember the details. "This lower section was unearthed in a tomb in Northern Egypt a few weeks ago. And the upper portion was found just recently in a flooded tomb in the south that's still being excavated." Yugi added, glancing to Pegasus for confirmation and receiving it with a brisk nod.

"Very good, Yugi-boy."

Oh yeah. I'd almost forgotten that Yugi's grandfather kept up with all this sort of stuff.

"Cool." Joey grinned. "But why go buryin' em' in two different places?" He asked, wandering around the room to check out all the other displays as he did. He was pretty street-smart. Of all of this that was really the main question and he'd gone straight for it like my big brother would have done, screw the theory and the lore. On this occasion I could guess why. You didn't go deliberately losing things unless you never wanted them found.

"To prevent their reassembly, of course." Pegasus cooed, confirming my suspicion. "The tablet depicts a very dangerous Shadow Game, after all." That didn't sound great. "The upper half of the tablet describes a spell to summon the god Osiris to spectate over a duel intended to return the deceased to life." Pegasus continued. "It seems the victor wins the right to leave the afterlife while the loser is to be bound there, forever."

Trapped in the afterlife forever? That was new information. To me, at least. I wondered if Seto had known the stakes would be so high when he was prepping the translated version of the photograph into his Duel Disk. Probably. It's not like it would have stopped him from dueling the Pharaoh anyway.

"Wait, fer real?" Joey questioned with a frown. "I mean sure, we've seen some crazy stuff in duels, but bringin' back dead people t'life?"

"Yes, now don't interrupt." Pegasus chided, fixing Joey with an unimpressed cyclops stare. "After dueling Yugi-boy in Egypt our dearly departed Pharaoh-boy was granted passage to the afterlife." Pegasus cast his eye back over the complicated hieroglyphics that ran up and down the tablet's surface. "However as a god of resurrection the ancient Egyptians believed that Osiris may also reverse that journey too, with the right impetus. This tablet appears to be a recording of a spell intended to do just that."

"But that's just all a superstition right?" I hoped so, for my brother's sake. "Gods don't really exist." Well the Egyptian God Cards did, but they were trading cards... though Seto had summoned Obelisk out of thin air when Diva jumped us in Egypt. Maybe that was because Seto was supposed to be the reincarnation of that priest from Atem's time. Thinking about _that_ made my head hurt.

"Spoken like a true Kaiba!" Pegasus chirped.

Yugi patted me on the shoulder as I ignored that comment. "So this 'spell', that's what you showed my brother?" I demanded, trying to fill in some gaps and not bothering to pretend not to be irritated about it.

"Yes. The top section of it, at least." Pegasus confirmed, "I might of been just a little too hasty-"

"-You showed this to Kaiba?" Yugi cut in and turned to Pegasus, his tone coming out a little bit sharp - or as sharp as Yugi's voice ever did. I don't think I'd ever seen him interrupt someone before. "Why would you do that?" He asked the question I wanted to so I kept my mouth shut, plus Yugi was always so nice that I wanted to watch and see where this was going. It looked like he was angry at Pegasus on Seto's behalf. I'd seen the Pharaoh get bent out of shape for him before, but it wasn't often that Yugi lost his temper.

"Calm down now, Yugi-boy." Pegasus held up his hands in surrender.

"But you must have known what would happen?" Yugi pressed, his eyes narrowing a bit to look more like Atem's. He didn't skip a beat before turning to me with that same disapproving look. "Mokuba, where _is_ Kaiba right now?" He questioned firmly. His tone of voice sounded half worried and half suspicious so it was clear he'd already guessed the answer.

"Seto was going to challenge the Pharaoh anyway." I admitted, answering his question while I lowered my eyes to stare at my feet. "He'd already been building a pod that used the Quantum Cube's energy to cross dimensions into the afterlife. Even without a spell he would have gone no matter what. I couldn't talk him out of it." I felt like such a failure for that - for never being able to talk my big brother out of anything, no matter how bad the idea was.

Joey ruffled my hair. "Ain't your fault, kid." He scratched at the tip of his nose with his finger, glancing over the tablet at the same time. "So just'ta recap, yer all sayin' Kaiba is'n the afterlife right now?"

"Yeah..." I muttered.

It was nice to have other people know, but explaining all of it hadn't exactly been painless.

"So he's dead?" Joey concluded bluntly.

That loser dog!

"The hell!" he yelped as I stamped on his foot as hard as I freaking could while Yugi shouted "Joey!" in a high-pitched squeak. Joey hopped up and down, cradling the foot I'd stomped with a "Ow ow ow".

"Shut up!" I yelled at him, my voice cracking at the worst possible time. "My brother isn't dead! He's coming back!"

"Ow. Y-yeah. O'course he is!" Joey corrected, slowly lowering his foot back to the floor with a wince of pain that he totally deserved. "Sorry, Mokuba." He added sheepishly, scratching at the back of his head.

Pegasus eyed us warily, like he thought he'd be next. Good. He better watch out for what he'd done. Seto's plan aside, he'd basically given candy to a hungry kid and then was pretending not to have anticipated the sugar rush.

Now it was Yugi's turn to look guilty. He kicked his foot against the floor like he was bashful about it. "I knew Kaiba missed Atem, but I never though he'd do something like that-"

"-You've met my brother, right?" I snapped at him, suddenly feeling so damn angry with everyone in this room and my big brother too. "Tall guy, brown hair, long coats."

"Mokuba..." Yugi replied softly, just letting me shout at him which made me even madder.

"This was exactly the sort of thing Seto would do!" How did he not get that? "Aren't you the one who keeps talking about being our friend?" I demanded. Yugi broke my glare to stare at the his feet. It wasn't fair to take it out on Yugi but this whole thing wasn't fair and it felt so good to have someone to blame right now.

"We are." He sighed to the floor tiles. As if! He hadn't spoken to me or my brother once since the Pharaoh left; not until Seto decided to go hunting him down in the street. Some 'friend'.

"Hey now-!" Joey yipped, of course coming to Yugi's defense.

I should never have let them come in here with me. This was a family matter. Forgetting that had been dumb.

"-Boys." Pegasus interrupted, actually sounding like a freaking adult for the first time ever as he pulled our attention back to him. "Bickering like ingrates does nothing." He chided with an over-exaggerated shrug. "Besides, Kaiba-boy's little _obsession_ isn't the issue here."

I gave Yugi and Joey one last glare and looked back over at Pegasus. "Yeah. Why _did_ you call me here, Pegasus?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

Pegasus just sighed dramatically and turned back to the stone.

"Look here." He pulled a laser pointer from the breast pocket of his suit and shone it at the middle of the tablet, flashing it back and forth beneath the divide where one half met with the other. The seam had crumbled away a line of hieroglyphs that continued onto the lower section before stopping and being replaced by creepy carvings of two half-lion monsters and a large horned wol that watched the duelists with open jaws. It looked familiar.

Yugi frowned in concentration, tracing the carving with his eyes before silently gasping like a fish. His face turned worried and I hated it. "It's Anubis!" He announced, walking over to the tablet's surface and pointing at the axe-headed dog on the other side of the tablet's break. "That's what he transformed into right before Atem sealed him with Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon!"

I hadn't recognized it before, being chiselled into stone made the detailing on the carving overly simple, but he was right.

"Anubis?" Joey squinted at the tablet as he tried to recall something. He rubbed his chin like he was thinking really hard about it. "The evil sorcerer guy who made all the Duel Monsters come to life and got us stuck inside'a the Millennium Puzzle?"

'Stuck inside of the Puzzle'? These guys led really weird lives, and this was coming from the kid who's brother had a dragon jet.

"Right again, Yugi-boy." Pegasus flicked his fingers non-nonchalantly toward the massive tablet. "It looks like Kaiba-boy will get more than he's bargained for when he tries to duel the Pharaoh." He elaborated without a single shred of actual concern. "If this tablet is to be believed then he might be in real danger."

"Tch." Of course he was, whenever it came to anything involving the Pharaoh all of my brother's plans just had to go wrong. Not that Pegasus was blameless either. "Thanks for that." I deadpanned, totally unimpressed. I'd be mad if this sort of thing hadn't become so routine.

Yugi looked all cut up about it for a few seconds before sharing another silent glance with Joey, which I guess meant it was his turn to take the lead in their conversational tag-team. "Yer takin' this well." He hesitantly complimented as I crossed my arms and tried to ignore all three of them and focus on the problem.

"That's because no sorcerer freak is going to hurt my brother." I confidently countered. It hadn't even been a full twenty four hours since he'd left yet and who knew how big the Pharaoh's afterlife was. Maybe Seto hadn't even found him yet. Maybe the duel hadn't even started. That was a long shot and I knew it, but if my big brother hadn't dueled the Pharaoh yet then I had to warn him. I was no engineer, but I didn't have to be. Seto had kept all the blueprints for the Dual Dimension system at the mansion, and the Quantum Cube that powered it was still in the vault. I had all the key components already. I could try and replicate his launch to go after him.

"Before you do anything too rash-" Pegasus interjected again, drawing out every word like he was getting a kick out of the situation "-there is one last detail."

What now? I peeled my eyeballs away from where they'd landed on the floor as I was thinking to glance over the tablet, frowning at the two figures Pegasus's little red dot was now circling. Joey looked confused as Yugi raised his eyebrow like he was hesitantly curious about why Pegasus was drawing laser loops around the carvings of the Pharaoh and my big brother.

"It's Atem." He noted, "and Kaiba."

"Dueling." I stated blandly. Like they always did.

"Dueling, yes." Pegasus explained overly slowly like he thought I was an idiot. "But the position of their carvings tell us that it's not as it initially appears." His laser hovered over them, drawing a line beneath them to underline their feet like he was emphasizing how they were standing.

"Their dueling together, as a team." Yugi added thoughtfully, kneeling down as he re-examined the lower portion of the tablet again and frowned at the carving of the weird lions and Anubis.

"Great." I dead-panned "And this is helpful why?" It didn't seem helpful. Not to me anyway.

"It's helpful because it shows us they're on the same side." Yugi answered, a bit of hope sneaking into his tone as he knelt down and re-examined the lower portion of the tablet again. "And that means nothing is going to beat them."

"Yeah." Joey agreed, warming up his words to match Yugi's. "If those two are werkin' t'gether you got nothin' ter worry about!"

I guess. But that was a pretty big 'if'.

**Kaiba**

I missed my damn jet.

I'd sell half of KaibaCorp right now to the guy who could bring it into this world so I could fly the hell away from this conversation with Atem.

So our rivalry didn't matter to him. It was worthless. Or at the very least worth less than his superstitious nonsensical belief in fate and destiny. So yeah: worthless.

If fate was a thing I'd have grown up as just another punk spat out by the foster care system roaming around getting into street fights. Either that or have died at eight years old in a car crash with the paternal non-entity who had stolen my biological father's face after my mother died. Fate was bullshit. I made my own destiny. Atem was a hell of a lot weaker than I'd ever thought if he couldn't do the same.

A stab of something sliced through me and it took me a minute to realize what it was. Disappointment. Turns out being let down by him was somehow worse than being beaten by him. I hadn't felt such a bitter disappointment in anything since Gozaburo decided he'd rather use a window as a door than admit defeat, but at least Gozaburo had taken the initiative and gone out on his own terms. The Pharaoh had done the exact opposite and somehow, to Atem, 'fate' was more appealing than what we had going on.

_"Our rivalry is not that important."_

Hearing that felt like he'd punched me in the solar plexus but in retrospect I'd already suspected it. He'd demonstrated it first hand the second he'd left for this dreamland, so of course on some level I'd already known. Logically I wouldn't even be here in his afterlife if there was any evidence to the contrary. Hearing it from his mouth was different to drawing the conclusion in my head but his bare-faced declaration had no damn right to be a shock or 'wound' because I'd already known it from the outset, hadn't I. Sorting it out in my mind was a relief. In fact, I should be thanking him. It took balls to look someone in the eye and tell them you don't give a damn after insisting they were your 'rival' or 'friend' after so long. Now I knew exactly where I stood and there was no ambiguity left for me to waste my time on trying to clear up.

The sudden need to get out of here struck me like a truck.

I wanted to be as far away from the Pharaoh and this his farcical afterlife as physically possible. The sooner I was back in the real world the better. Moronic as it was, this finally felt like a conclusion. It wasn't the one I was aiming toward, but I hadn't really known what I was hoping for - only that I'd know it when I saw it. This was 'it'. We were done here. It was time to go home and put this all in the rear view mirror. Life was full of disappointments; one more wasn't a surprise.

It irritated me to admit, but Yugi was right. It really was 'time to move on'.

My Duel Disk chimed as it finished restarting after the system diagnostic. Mokuba had picked the Operating System's start-up jingle. I didn't like it, but I'd never change it. Between the power supply issue and an overheated visual processor scrambling the UI the built-in clock hadn't been clear before but I could now see the ten minute maximum summoning time had been tossed to the wind by these non-holographic holograms. They'd buzzed around for the better part of twelve minutes it looked like the scarabs were as bored of all this as I was.

Figures that nothing here would play by my rules.

The chassis of the my Duel Disk easily screwed back into place by feel alone and it was just as well I'd worked so quickly. The light now wasn't good enough for anything else, and it kept getting darker. The light from the moon had been serviceable before but the sky must have clouded over and combining that with the growing layer of scarabs that were taking it upon themselves to either mash into the pod or crawl along its hull and darken the windows meant the ambient light had no chance.

Now I had a totally different problem to figure out how to deal with, and it was sitting right next to me.

Repairing the Duel Disk seemed to be the only thing keeping Atem and I from having another round of 'conversation', so the fact that I couldn't continue with the repairs any more was a slap in the face. Thankfully it seemed we'd reached out conversational quota and the Pharaoh had gone very still since that last little heart to heart. I stole a glance at him. From his breathing he clearly wasn't asleep but his eyes were closed and his dark eyelashes cast soft shadows against his high cheekbones. They suited him, but were a surprise. Yugi's face was much rounder by comparison and his features weren't as refined as Atem's or as classically masculine. It made for a weird contrast that the Pharaoh's eyelashes were almost overly long, nearly feminine, but nothing else about him was. That would be a difficult dichotomy of traits to reproduce with my holograms once I got back.

That made me pause. Why bother with the AI version of him now? So it could tell me each and every match I simulated that our battle was worthless to it? Not likely. Atem had made me unimportant to him, it was time to start returning the favor. That made me smirk ruefully. Simulating him, trying to resurrect him, coming here; this whole thing had been so fucking stupid.

"Tch."

Red eyes opened questioningly at my scoff and then squinted in the gloom. "Why is it so dark?" The Pharaoh questioned suspiciously.

"It's night." I shrugged, my left shoulder hitching as I did. "It's not my fault you haven't invented street lights yet." I sneered, not really giving a damn about his question. I really didn't care if he thought it was too dark; I didn't want to talk to him right now. I just wanted him to shut up and not exist.

With a flex of his biceps Atem pulled his Duel Disk toward him and the golden glow of the custom UI lit up the cockpit like a candle, so blindingly bright to have been activated so abruptly in the blackness that I instinctively shielded my eyes.

"Kaiba-"

"-What?"

"We need to go, now!" The Pharaoh urgently ordered.

"Why?" I demanded. I lowered my arms and I squinted over his shoulder at the display as my vision readjusted. The card art for Bottomless Shifting Sand – the trap card – was reflected in Atem's Duel Disk display. The card had been played a while ago by the look of it. The audio notification must have been drowned out by our shouting match.

"What?!"

I popped several of the fasteners free and slapped the pod's tarpaulin cover back to get a look. The sheet was heavy thanks to all the scarabs crawling across it but as soon as I disturbed it they buzzed and flew off, the whole swarm flying into the sky that we were rapidly slipping away from.

"Damn it!" I snapped.

A steep embankment of sand had grown in around us, filling up the space around the pod like a quagmire. No, I realized as the moon continued to shrink away. It wasn't the sand dunes that were growing, it was the pod that was sinking; with us in it!

Just great.

I fully ripped off the tarp canopy and jumped out to stand on the pod's hull, pulling out my toolkit with me. Atem copied, emerging from the cockpit to stand beside me on the metal frame as the desert sinkhole prepared to swallow us whole and sand began to creep up the windshield. Shards of glass sprayed up at us as the pressure of Bottomless Shifting Sand crushed the underside of the hull and the pod violently jerked underneath our feet.

"Watch out." I yelled as Atem was knocked off balance. Abruptly jerking my arm around to grab him made a crackle of pain pulse down from my shoulder as I snatched his wrist and yanked him back towards me to keep him from being devoured by the whirlpool of sand. "Ghn!" Shit. Snagging it against the balcony earlier must have loosened the pin. I shoved my fingers against the joint to try and get it properly back in place.

Atem seemed concerned, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead to almost disappear under his tacky tiara but I scowled through gritted teeth at him and cut him off before he could open his big mouth. "Save it; we've got company."

The Pharaoh's eyes narrowed and he quickly put his game face on, the presence of battle visibly filling up his body and mind with that superlative focus that no one else came close to matching. "Yes, I see her." He confirmed, bracing his legs as he easily rode the turbulence without a second thought as the pod continued to buck and be crushed beneath us. I did the same, not taking my eyes off the moron who thought now was a good time to show up and test me.

From the top of the embankment the unmistakable silhouette of Not-Ishizu stood overshadowed against the moon. She licked her lips, the white light catching the movement and branding her in a silver sheen.

"It's a frightening demise, wouldn't you say?" She called down to us as Hieracosphinx screeched at her side, "To be lost to the sands?" Her eyes gleamed like polished metal, staring bullets at us as her scarabs buzzed at her back, swirling around her as a defensive vortex of wings and twitching limbs. "And have insects eat the flesh off your bones." She purred, catching a scarab in the palm of her hand and crushing it in her fist with a loud crunch. It exploded into black ooze and dribbled out between her fingers. "But you needn't fear, my scarabs and I won't waste a single scrap of you." She shook the mess free with a waggle of her wrist before pointing toward us. "Feast my hungry pets!" she called and the swarm responded. The Swarm of Scarabs closed in around her, undulating in a whirlwind and then rushed forward down the pit towards us like a torrent of water.

Finally. Some fucking action. Something I could smack down and pulverize beneath my boot! I laughed at Ishizu or Isis or Sphinx Teleia or whoever the fuck it was Atem thought we were up against. She had no damn idea what she was signing up for.

The scarabs swarmed around us, humming like helicopter blades as they flew past my ears and messing up my hair but other than that managing to do a whole lot of nothing. A few landed on my coat and I dislodged them with a single swipe; one tried to bite me with its pincers but it couldn't get through the leather of my suit. I huffed in sour amusement at the ridiculous anti-climax. Such weaklings.

"Is this really the best you can do?" I smirked at her as her useless scarabs crawled over us. I didn't like the feeling but I didn't move. She had a pretty good poker-face but her monster wasn't even worth my time to react to. "Pathetic!" I told her, snatching up one of her scarabs and throwing it back into the wind. It caught itself and buzzed lazily, hovering in mid air. I was tempted to summon up Blue-Eyes and test out its stability now I'd done some repairs to my Duel Disk, but it would be an insult to my dragon to waste its valuable time on these small fry.

Atem hummed thoughtfully, brushing a few that had landed on his cape off with a flex of his fingers. "Be careful, Kaiba." He warned me, sounding so superior.

"Shut up." I didn't need him or his stupid warnings. We were done.

He didn't reply.

Sphinx Teleia simply continued to grin, narrowing her eyes a little. "Well then I'll simply have to do better." She cooed, turning her attention back to her phony Duel Disk.

"Yeah, you do that." Please do. I wanted a real fight. "Give it your best shot!"

She tapped on her lip, the moon catching the maliciousness in her eyes despite the playful gesture. In a pulse of tar a trio of new cards dripped into existence between her fingers and she slipped the gross wet things onto her shoddy fake Duel Disk.

Two of the cards went face down onto the desert floor and the third she activated, raising her arm to the sky with the showmanship of a second rate duelist. The clouds began to gather, swirling unnaturally into a spiral in the sky above her.

"Behold, my Master's Pyramid of Wonders!" She announced with a boastful laugh.

The sharp tip of something bright and pointed pierced through the swarming cloud cover, illuminating the night sky with a glowing blue light as an impossible upside down pyramid sank from the stratosphere towards us, stretching in every direction as it hung over our heads.

"Dramatic." I deadpanned. And totally useless while she controlled no Zombie monsters. That made her two face down cards a foregone conclusion.

I hoped for her sake she was happy with her choices because it was live by the cards, die by the cards. I smirked, making sure the expression was as dark as I could make it while waiting to see what her last gasp was going to be before I pulverized her.

The first of the face down cards remained hovering in the air, idly dripping onto the sand. The second one had a more immediate presence as Sphinx Teleia Flip Summoned a monster with it. The ground in front of her erupted in ooze, a long stalk bursting out of the mush and growing taller and taller, a massive bud unfurling and uncurling to reveal -

"-Mummified Fruit." Atem noted, frowning suspiciously at the effect monster as the ridiculous looking giant apple swaddled in bandaged swayed merrily from the top of its long green stalk.

"Tch." First Yugi, now this. Why was everyone trying to battle me with fruit?

"Oh no!" Atem barked beside me. He could spare me the dramatics.

"What, too many antioxidants?" I smirked at him as he turned back to glare at me, serious as ever.

"No. Look!" He urgently jabbed a finger toward Teleia and I got what he was pointing at as Hieracosphinx screeched in pain. Patches of fur fell and skin from its body in large chunks as lesions spread across its body and its pelt turned grey. Bones and exposed muscle were bared as its body bloated and swelled up in size to blot out the moon.

"Pyramid of Wonders increases the strength all Zombie types present for each monster we control and Mummified Fruit -" Shit. "-Turns everything she's got on the field into Zombies." I finished for him. Since my Blue-Eyes and Kaiser Sea Horse had de-spawned but not been destroyed they'd never been removed from our shared side of the field. No thanks to them every single one of Sphinx Teleia's monsters had just lucked into a free power boost, the spell card also working on both Swarm of Scarabs and Sphinx Teleia herself because of Mummified Fruit's effect. Hieracosphinx's new hulking zombie body prowled and squawked as it shed dead feathers, now several times taller than Teleia herself.

She patted the moldering monster idly. "Finish them." She sneered.

"Scrawwwwwwwwwwww!"

Almost too quick to track Hieracosphinx leapt into the pit, bounding across the writhing sand toward us with an entourage of semi-decayed Zombie-typed scarabs racing behind it like a vapour trail. Between the Bottomless Shifting Sand and the monsters we had nowhere to go but to fight through and I damn well liked it that way!

"I'll take care of it." Atem announced, drawing a card in a flash of gold.

"Like hell you will!" I snapped back, generating my own in bright blue. I didn't need Atem to 'take care' of anything!

"I play Dust Tornado! -"

"- I activate Interdimensional Matter Transporter!"

We yelled simultaneously, slapping our cards down in unison. The Duel Disk's 'played cards' log flashed up, trying to parse out the simultaneous inputs.

"How kind of you to destroy yourselves." Teleia cackled. With a flourish of her hand she revealed her final card, Mystical Refpanel.

A blue orb cradled in the hands of a pink and purple fairy hovered in front of her, pulling both of our spells into it like a black hole. Atem's twister howled as it was drawn into the ball in a flurry of wind and sand while my Matter Transporter wildly shot out portals in every direction as it got sucked into the singularity.

"This will be bad." Atem commented, non-nonchalantly.

"You fucking think!"

The orb churned in the sprite's hold. Then it exploded.

Our spells tore apart the desert as they blasted back at us and I couldn't even tell what happened. It was too fast. I saw Atem brace for the impact beside me, then he was thrown behind me into the air. I was shot into the sky; whirled around and turned upside down in the tornado so quickly I couldn't judge the direction; I could only feel the wind and the sand scouring my face as gravity flipped and tried to tear me apart.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!"

Someone was shouting, but it was impossible to hear any words. I might have been shouting too - I couldn't tell. The sky and the sand somersaulted overhead, swapping places over and over again and I was sure I'd be throwing up already if I had anything left after earlier. Abruptly a portal made by my Matter Transporter yawned open in front of me and I crashed into it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Atem**

This sound... What was this sound? It was familiar...That long rattling hiss, almost a screech.

Japanese cicadas.

I sputtered awake as my nose and mouth filled with silty water. It tasted of earth and left grit on my tongue.

Where was I?

A peaceful forest clearing met my view as I managed to raise my head from the muddy riverbank, feeling the muck slide down the side of my face as I did so. Sunlight dappled across the surface of the water and a welcome breeze stirred the leaves of the nearby trees. It was day now and a mercilessly hot one. I must have been unconscious for quite some time to have missed the dawn. My robe and hair were being gently tousled by the current as my body lay caught against the shoreline of a river that quietly babbled into a lake.

Slowly I propped myself up on my elbows to spit out the loose soil, a stabbing pain in my side stilling me from moving any further. Pain from the cut in my side spirited my fingers on one hand to dig into the silt in search of an outlet for the frisson of agony as I pressed my other hand to my side. The slash must have reopened. The riverbed soil rushed in around my sandals as I forced myself to my feet and the current swallowed up three thick drops of blood that escaped between my fingers and dripped down from my side.

With a cleansing breath and set a pace for myself by placing one foot in front of the other and then mirroring the action, concentrating through the discomfort in my side. Slowly and methodically I marched toward a nearby tree, carefully picking my feet up and over the network of roots that undulated across the forest floor until I was close enough to lean against it.

I settled there braced against the tree and pressed my forehead to the cool bark, trying to bring my breathing back under my full control while the cicadas hissed louder in the background. Oblivious to my presence songbirds cheerily chirped and fluttered from branch to branch above my head. I recognized the birds. Their calls were familiar to me, though I'd only ever heard them through Yugi's ears. Their presence here in the Egyptian afterlife was completely unnatural; as was this type of tree. They grew in Domino park and in the woodland that flanked the Kaiba Mansion.

Wait - where was Kaiba? I wiped the sweat from my forehead and glanced around, suspecting he wouldn't be too far away.

My heart had near beaten out of my chest as we fell through the air on the torrents of my rebel Dust Tornado but fate had been our ally. The portal that swallowed Kaiba before my eyes caught me in its maw next. I'd heard him yelling in the distance as we'd emerged on the other side and water hurtled toward me -or I toward it- but couldn't recall anything beyond that.

"Kaiba?" I called out, doubting that he would answer. I was proven correct as I listened for some terse retort and heard only silence. His typical obstinacy was a palatable motivation for the lack of reply, but he could just as easily have been injured in the fall and be unconscious somewhere. I needed bind my own wound and find him.

A scrap torn from my cloak would have to suffice. I gritted my teeth and tied it around my waist as tightly as I could to staunch the bleeding. Or so I had intended. A moment later blood bloomed once more across the purple fabric, staining it. "Damn that oaf and his stubbornness." I cursed as I passed the material around my body a second time to make a thick sash.

It was as familiar as it was frustrating that my winning combination against Teleia had been thwarted not by our opponent, but by Kaiba's inability to listen! I told him I would deal with the matter and he'd thrown it back in my face to miraculous catastrophe before I could place even two cards.

With a great deal of effort I parted from my tree to wander the lake's outer edge, hoping he'd been fortunate enough to wash up here like I had while savoring the location's tranquility. The lake was the picture of peacefulness; no doubt waiting to be shouted apart by Kaiba's living-chaos the moment I found him.

Doing so took little time; recognizable as he was.

He too was slicked with mud, yet his white coat shone luminous against the lakefront. It was faintly disturbing to see his wardrobe as anything less than immaculate; even Anubis's necromantic filth had been unable to soil the snow-white hide Kaiba garbed himself in as easily as a second skin.

I kept my pace steady as I marched from grass to sand and knelt beside him, the muscles in my legs and slash in my side protesting at the treatment.

Warm air tickled my palm as I hovered my hand across his nose and mouth. Just as I suspected, it would take more than a few wayward card effects to end the bullheaded duelist. "Kaiba, wake up." I bid him. There was a reaction; a soft moan and a slight rolling of his shoulder. My words seem to have little effect beyond that. "Kaiba." I tried again, sharper than before and bearing fruit as his body frantically jerked awake, smacking me with his arms as I hovered over his head and kicking at me like a startled horse. I secured his wrists in my grip to stop him from striking at me again or hitting himself and understood that had been the wrong move to make as he thrashed even more violently in my hold, eyes opening wide and unfocused as I held him down.

"Kaiba!" I shouted, ducking a fist as it writhed free from my grasp to try and hit me. "Kaiba, stop!" I'd seen him unconscious several times, but never before had I tried to wake him myself. I now understood attempting to do so to have been a mistake. His chest heaved and breath came free of his lips in ragged pants before his eyes finally focused on my face. Then his expression grew more awake and even more furious and he began to fight against me all over again, and stronger this time.

"Get the hell off of me!" He yelled, forcefully trying to yank himself free of me. I dropped his wrists and backed away as Kaiba scrambled to sit up and reclaim his space. He snarled at me, rubbed his eyes and ran his hand over his hair to pull back his bangs a little before viciously forcing himself back onto his feet, wobbling a little as his boots sank into the gritty beach sand.

"Where are we?" He demanded, somehow fully awake and blazing with energy.

How did he expect me to know? This forest was of his creation. "I know as little as you do." I countered, glaring as he turned to me.

"Don't you live here?" He snapped. How he could muster such aggression in this heat I had no idea. Even my High Priest was more inclined to be easygoing in these conditions.

Kaiba swiped at his coat, trying to work the wet sand free and leered at me, waiting for my retort as though we were to take turns in insulting each other. He became irritated as I refused, instead staring at him in reprimand. I had little energy for this and Kaiba's body had sustained so much additional damage. How could he still have enough vigor spare to throw at meaningless bickering?

"Tch!" He grimaced and turned away from me. "Whatever."

Without so much as a glance Kaiba stepped back and abruptly stalked off towards the treeline of the forest.

"Where do you think you're going?" I questioned, harshly, watching after him as his coat flicked at his heels like the tail of an irate cat. Fallen twigs and dried leaves crunched beneath my feet as I pursued him. Walking away was an insult of the deepest kind to a Pharaoh. To show a back without dismissal was executable, though no one born to my line had been so petty for several generations. Kaiba cared little of my people's customs, of course, but it struck at my temper all the same as he disappeared into the treeline without a care.

"There's no sense walking off until we know what direction to travel in." I added, raising my voice. The trees eagerly consumed us both as I strode after him, each step agitating the cut beneath my sash. Kaiba paused as his long legs finished effortlessly guiding him over a fallen log. He glanced back at me and then snapped his head forward as though he hadn't heard me speak. The strange behaviour irritated me. Though hidden behind pride or feigned ignorance Kaiba always listened to what I had to say. How dare he ignore me now, as though I was beneath his acknowledgement!

"Would you wait?" I growled, in no mood for his foul attitude right now. His anger was obvious, though I had no idea its source or target. Given I was the only thing in it's gravitational pull, I had to conclude I was the most likely candidate. With each overly long-legged step he took fury propelled him further and further away from me in silent protest over some slight either real or in his own head – it was impossible to judge. I refused to chase him down and trudging through this unknown wood without a goal or destination was a fool's errand.

"Kaiba!" I shouted at the back of his thick skull. He pressed on further, quicker, still pretending as though he couldn't hear me; as if I was nothing but a ghost again. Despite the childishness of it a sting of hurt raced through me.

"Enough!" I scolded, all but demanding his attention by vaulting over the log and planting my feet firmly in front of him with arms thrown wide open to become as impassable as possible. "Whatever your issue with me is release your rage and think clearly for once in your life!"

He was forced to stop or run into me and crossed his arms tightly over his chest.

"You need new material. Your lectures are getting boring and formulaic" Kaiba noted, tone bored and cold but finally speaking at the very least. Why was he acting this way? His eyes avoided me with determination, locked on some empty point above my head.

"I'll devise a new one once I'm certain the previous has penetrated your thick skull!" I easily countered, a little relieved that despite his words and demeanor he was at the very least looking at me again as he fixed me with a dull stare for my rebuttal.

"Sphinx Teleia found us in the desert easily. She must be able to track us." I pressed. Wandering lost through the forest was useless if it worked only to disorient us but not our foe. Kaiba glanced away again to deny me his gaze.

"Probably following the sound of your big mouth." Kaiba grumbled to himself, barely loud enough for me to hear as though speaking to me was a great inconvenience. He sidled around me to continue navigating through the trees.

"Is that was this is about?" I added, already able to guess the answer judging from his backhanded comment. "Have I said something to offend you?" I demanded. I couldn't say why he was attempting to - as Joey would call it - 'blank me' but I recognized the tactic with each passing lack of response and denial of eye contact.

"Tch." Kaiba's wayward expression darkened even as he refused to look at me as I kept pace beside him.

"We need to work together if we are to find and defeat Anubis." I surmised, narrowing my eyes at him. "So either tell me or let it go."

I had expected a shout of "I don't need your help." or a "I'll win this on my own!" Instead I received another stony silence as Kaiba continued on keeping his eyes locked on a parting in the treeline. What could I have said to prompt him to start acting this way?

We stepped through the veil of trees, only to gaze upon the very lake we had just strode away from. We'd gone in a circle and my patience was at its end. Kaiba growled beside me, turning to march back into the trees again to no doubt the same result. I caught his wrist in mine, keeping my hold loose to avoid his earlier reaction.

"Stop ignoring me like a petulant child." I demanded, my building rage finally breaking like a wave against a cliff.

"What!" Kaiba snatched his arm out of my hold, turning to me with so much venom in his eyes I reflexively took a step backwards to open a dueling space between us as he took a step forward, repeating the action again and again as he pressed his advantage to trap me; marching us both into the middle of the thick trunk of a hollowed out tree. It had died standing and with tall walls of bark looming over me on every side and Kaiba himself blocking the only exit escape was impossible. Now our duel of words would truly begin.

"What the hell did you just say to me?" He demanded.

"Stop ignoring me!" I repeated with a growl of my own, returning his intensity in kind.

"Why?" He bellowed, slamming his fist into the bark above my head with enough force to splinter the wood and further boxing me in between his body and the tree itself. His expression darkened as the shadows of the canopy above overtook his face. He leaned towards me, over me, like a predator cornering his prey, but I was not intimidated in the least!

"So you can call me worthless!" He barked, a little spittle hitting my face.

What! What idiocy was this? I had never called him something so utterly absurd! Exactly what vile words had his willful ability to ignore the truth planted into my mouth without my consent?

"I have never called you worthless!" I shouted back. I would meet his volume with my own if that was what it took.

He glowered at me savagely, eyes bright with a rage he clearly didn't care to tame.

"'Our rivalry is worthless' - that ringing any bells?" He hissed, smacking his palm even harder against the bark above my head with a deafening slapping sound.

"I never said that!" I parried. "Are you so arrogant that just because you are not greater than the will of the gods you condemn me as deeming you worthless?" It seemed Kaiba had a hidden propensity for internalizing conversations and twisting them to his own warped narrative. I had noticed it partially in snippets of conversations over the years but only now did I suspect the true extent of the habit.

"I'm not worthless!" He thundered, utterly missing my point. Where was all of this coming from? What deep hole in Kaiba's brain had my words fallen into to be so adulterated as they echoed around his mind? I wished so desperately for Yugi's insight into the situation, clearly I was doing more harm than good to Kaiba when left to my own judgement.

"No, you're not!" I roared back in agreement. "I have already apologized once! Must I prostrate myself at your feet you before you'll accept my regrets!" Hadn't we had this argument already? Was this not settled? "Stop putting words in my mouth. You're my equal!" I reminded him, amplifying my voice to shout as loudly as I could. "Do not ever forget that." I finished with, Kaiba's angry eyes darting away from mine, no longer able to hold eye contact. "Fate may be something you're happy to overthrow, Kaiba, but it is as precious to me as self-determination is to you!" I explained, lowering my voice "Can you not accept that and my respect at the same time?"

Kaiba said nothing and ducked his head away, I hoped in understanding.

Trapped against him and the walls of tree bark a strange feeling was beginning to crawl up my spine. Despite his best attempts at being threatening Kaiba didn't intimidate me. I had seen him at his very worst and stood strong against the storm of his full maliciousness before - so why was my breath catching in my chest? Why was something that felt so close to fear biting at my nerves without good reason?

"Back off." I commanded. I wanted space; I couldn't breathe as easily as I usually could. The sensation of the bark closing in around me licked at my mind.

Kaiba's eyes narrowed. They darted across my face abruptly becoming very intent upon my expression. I was unsure what they saw, but with a rebellious scoff a gritting of his teeth and a clenching of the fist half-embedded in the tree wall above my head he acquiesced. With a sweeping step back he opened up my escape route to the open world and with a serenity I didn't feel I casually dipped below his arm to claim it - more desperate to do so than even I had realized. I calmed as I took a step back toward the lake, deeply unsure of the reason for my quickly vanishing panic.

"Fine." He bit out, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. I had no idea what he was agreeing upon.

"Fine." I echoed regardless.

A breeze blew between is as we stared at anything except one another. It cooled a little of my sweat as it rustled the leaves of the trees and caused the branches to gently sway, though it seemed our shouting had frightened all but one of the birds from the boughs.

"Where are we?" I wondered aloud and not for the first time, picking a topic as neutral as possible as I observed our surroundings. "There's nothing but forest in every direction." For a moment it seemed Kaiba wouldn't answer and it would have been utterly in keeping with the mood if he sourly turned my attempt to make conversation into another silence, just to prove he could.

I welcomed his words as after a pause Kaiba replied. "I knew a place like this when I was a kid." His voice was a little distant. I glanced back to him.

With practised nonchalance Kaiba was leaning back against the trunk of a tree projecting a well-constructed air of disinterest. It didn't fool me. He was exhausted, that much was clear, but there remained a stiffness in his shoulders that denied relaxation.

"We should rest and regain our strength while we can." I noted to the sky with deliberate neutrality. There was nothing less likely to help Kaiba rest than commanding him to do so, especially if he still harbored some anger toward me.

" _You_ rest - I'm fine." Kaiba sneered back into the wind. Predictable rebelliousness aside I was glad as he leaned down to take a seat at the roots of a tree despite his words.

"Very well. At least one of us should be, to face the challenges ahead." I cautiously taunted, sure that he was aware of his hypocrisy but unable to judge Kaiba in this moment. His chaotic moods were telling. "But don't lay your bitterness at my door if I'm forced to step in and protect you once the energy from your bad-temper finally runs its course." I chanced, looking at him with small smirk.

A soft "Hnh." passed his lips. "As if I'd let that happen."

A new silence eclipsed us as the cicadas nosily hissed from the undergrowth and the birds warily returned to their perches high up in the trees to crowd the single pale dove that had remained unaffected by our quarrel. It's glossy black eyes fled my own as soon as it noticed my attention. It was familiar, or else made for an odd coincidence.

"Tell me," I turned to Kaiba and he to me at the serious tone of my voice. "Are white pigeons native to this forest?"

Kaiba's eyes narrowed suspiciously as they slowly trailed upward into the tree canopy. "Why?" He demanded tiredly, side-stepping the question as he spotted the creature in question hidden among the songbirds. "And if you tell me it's a sign from one of your gods I'll mock you."

I glared mildly at him for his disrespectful gibe and received only a fatigued smirk in response. Finally he gave in under my glower and rolled his eyes before answering my question with his typical surliness.

"I don't know." Kaiba scowled quietly after a moment and then became curiously still. "I can't remember." He belatedly added, his voice loosing its projection and usual hardness to become little more than a gruff mutter.

The copper notes in his eyelashes caught in the sunlight as his eyelids slowly closed together in a tentative relaxation. Good. I needed him to recover his strength. Relying upon his temper to keep him awake was a solution that would eventually fail him and if we were to win this duel we would have to be in better condition than this.

"Stop looking at me." He demanded without opening his eyes.

Heat rose up to my cheeks. I wasn't sure why being caught staring seemed suddenly so inappropriate. Despite what looked like an earnest attempt at it Kaiba's inability to relax seemed to be transferable.

"I'm not." I assured him, returning my gaze to the pigeon. It was a worthy distraction. Under my watch it began busily preening the feathers under its wing just as the songbirds at its sides were doing and appearing to be nothing more than a normal - if not strangely unique - member of the flock. After continuing this for another few seconds it primed its wings for flight and took off, sailing over head and out of sight while its neighbours continued to clean themselves nonplussed. Their lack of reaction to the pigeon dispelled my suspicions even as watching them heightened my awareness of the half dried mud that pulled against my my own skin.

I couldn't abide by the feeling of being unclean. It hadn't bothered at all while hosted by Yugi; hygiene and such personal matters were his to command and I had eagerly left such tasks to his private purview but with a lifetime of fresh linen and deep baths now mine to recall I found myself wanting for my own habits. I gazed over Kaiba towards the lake, weighing as idea in my mind before settling upon it.

The cool sand of the beach eagerly worked its way between my toes as I peeled away the sandals from my feet and waded out to my ankles. The cold lake water was a blessing and no sooner was it lapping against my feet than the dryness of my throat shouted in chorus.

A muted shuffling of heavy material and tentatively sounded behind my shoulder as I knelt down to cup the clear water in my hands and spirited it down my throat. "What are you doing?" I turned and beheld as Kaiba's eyelids cracked open a fraction. It looked like that took an effort.

I smirked at Kaiba, beginning to unclasp my cloak as I did so. "Taking a swim." My fingers caught the heavy purple fabric as I pulled it loose from my neck and tossed it back toward the sandy beach.

Kaiba grunted in clear disapproval of the idea. "Whatever." He conceded, far too easily, before closing his eyes again and tilting his head away from me toward the forest as though to avoid my eyes. Never had I seen someone so fatigued look so restless. It seemed to take all of his energy simply to remain still against all the things clamoring to disturb him; the stiff breeze making him shiver, a rustle in the forest making his breathing pause, the sounds of the lake babbling or a fish jumping making his eyes clench tighter. Even his teeth gritted as his left hand clenched against nothing. I wondered if there was something wrong with it.

My lips loosed as the feeling of the scales of a small fish dart between my heels drew my attention back to the water. Mana and I had spoken of going fishing soon after the festival. Mahad had taken us many times when I was still just a prince and used it as a lesson to demonstrate the merits of patience to Mana and I. "Be swift, but do not rush." I could still hear him telling me; my drive to be the first to catch a fish spiriting me toward the well-deserved fate of also being the first to slip over and make an embarrassing splash. Mahad's expression as he slowly shook his head at my rushed strike was as clear in my imagination as though he was here with me. I chuckled at it. I was so fortunate to have my memories back and to find them full of so many warm days.

Without any more hesitation I waded in to my knees and slipped further beneath the lake's surface. The temperature below was cool; colder than was normal for the waters of Egypt but felt perfect against my heated skin. It was a relief to begin to pry the rest of my clothing away from my body and feel the water and wind against my sweat. I gathered my robe and undergarments into an orderly pile in my arms before throwing the soft linens back to the shoreline and out of harms way without a backward glance.

The expected soft thump of the fabric hitting the grass instead replaced with a "What the -!" as I sank into the lake's embrace.

I pivoted, toes flexing around the slippery stones of the lake bed as I turned back to behold Kaiba's stifled look of surprise as he brushed the fabric that had landed on his shoulder off of him with a "Urg." His speedy reactions made him volt to his feet and whirl away from the garments hastily before his eyes could take in what it was that had assaulted him. As that realization cemented itself he stepped away from them calmly, crossing his arms in mild perturbment and fixing me with his blue stare.

"Run out of lectures so now you're throwing clothes at me instead?" He mocked tonelessly. I rolled my shoulders in a shrug, finding his reaction amusing enough to grin at even while he attempted to smooth it over with a calmness Kaiba could never seem to cling to for long.

"I wasn't aiming for you." I noted.

"Yeah? Well guess what: It's hard to 'rest' when you're splashing around over here like a kid at a water park and throwing things at me." He raised his palm a little and outstretched his first two fingers toward me in a hand gesture I couldn't recall seeing before. "Obviously." He added, as I arched an eyebrow at him.

Ah. "It wasn't my intention to wake you." Despite the jab Kaiba didn't seem terribly angry. For that reason alone I added "I apologize."

A soft 'Hnh' sound was his reply and he stared down at the material before nudging it into a pile with the corner of his boot. It was with surprise that I understood the noise, or that I realized I had come to understand it. It was a sound of token protest, when his heart or mind acknowledged he had no grounds to argue but his pride bid him to object anyway. After scowling at the linen he turned his head back to me.

"Whatever." He rolled his shoulder as though to loosen it up and stretched his neck to the side as he pushed against it. "I only sleep in twenty minute increments anyway".

I couldn't tell if he was being serious or sarcastic. The comment was like a face down card that had too much potential to ruin the lightheartedness of the situation so I let it be and swapped tactics.

"Do you swim?" I asked curiously.

Kicking the pile of my clothing he had just ordered away with his boot Kaiba sat down on the grass, crossing his legs as he watched me from the shore in a gesture that implied without words that no matter the answer to my question he had no intention of joining me.

"Of course I can swim." He replied, somewhat sourly. "I'm surprised you can." He smirked at that. "Fun trick for a guy that grew up in a litter box."

And just like that he was back to his usual self and the tension that had dogged us since awakening in this place was all but gone. It would seem we had 'made up', for now. Navigating the waves of Kaiba's anger without cards in hand or a duel arena between us was as exhausting as it was rewarding.

I effortlessly reclined in the lake, letting it swallow my shoulders and tilting my head back to let the cold water cushion my skull. "I can do many things I'd never thought possible as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle." It was a boast and I took pleasure in it – in knowing myself anew. Many of the more physical hobbies that came to me easily had not found a place in Yugi's daily life and so it was only here in this world with my memories returned I could enjoy them to their fullness.

"Like?" Kaiba asked gruffly, waiting for me to elaborate despite the boredom in his tone. That surprised me, I hadn't been expecting him to be interested. I watched the clouds float above my head lazily. My list might seem very pedestrian to Kaiba, but it pleased me. For a moment I doubted the wisdom in answering him – knowing he may well laugh at the passions I had never even known were mine to possess… but he had asked.

"Fishing, riding, archery –"

"-Swimming." He interrupted.

"Swimming." I agreed, "Hunting, fencing –"

"-I get it, all the 'primitive man' kinda bull." He interrupted again. I frowned at him for that; it was the reaction I had expected but lacked the venom it could have carried.

He snorted.

"Yes - yet this 'primitive' has also never once been bested by you in a fair contest." I taunted, my arrow finding its mark as Kaiba's jaw clenched.

"Hnh. Touche."

I chuckled at his half-hearted objection and waded back toward the shoreline, pausing at the strange motion as Kaiba suddenly jerked his head in the opposite direction to me as though he'd been smacked and slapped a hand over eyes.

"Why the hell are you naked!"

"Nh?" I glanced down, realizing I had almost waded to my lower hips as I returned to shore. I couldn't help it. I laughed wholly at Kaiba's unexpectedly coy reaction. Acceptable and practical standards of nudity differed between our worlds, but even by modern standards his response seemed immature. "I'm sure I have nothing you haven't seen before, Kaiba." I teased, enjoying every moment of the utterly contradictory situation as Kaiba slowly disentangled his fingers from his eyes with an embarrassed growl of protest. After going so long without my own body I had come to rather enjoy the freedom of exposure.

"That doesn't mean I want to see your junk!" He snapped back, glaring at me defiantly.

"Then don't look." I countered with a smirk that I had no intention of hiding.

"Bastard." Kaiba muttered, turning away from me as I grinned at him again. This was unexpected but then again Kaiba was always very heavily clothed. Other than his face and hands I had never seen him expose his skin.

"Looks like even you can't get away from everything unscathed though, huh." Kaiba observed sarcastically, a long finger pointing at the wound in my side even as he remained staring steadfast into any direction except the one I was occupying.

I hummed, my fingers ghosting across the slash. Moving around so much had agitated it and more blood came away on my fingers as I stroked it.

"It's just a cut." I assured him and parried his jab with "No one is invincible Kaiba, you know that."

"Tch."

Ah, I had hit a sour note.

Kaiba's fingers pinched at the tunic on the lake bank beside him, easily spotting the wound in my clothing from the ruddy hue that marred the fabric. The linen had soaked up my blood hungrily, making the strain spread wider and look much worse than it really was. His eyes roved over it, holding in his hands and watching as the fabric fail to bend where my dried blood and hardened.

Abruptly he pulled his arm back and threw the tunic across the lake at me catapult-like. He was aiming for my head but I caught it out of the air easily, denying him his target.

"Wash your crap. It's gross."

I snatched the garment, holding it above the water. "Hypocrite. I fail to understand how you can lecture me while comfortably sitting there and nothing about yourself."

Kaiba's nails remained damaged from Anubis's mistreatment, a little blood having caught in them where a few had split. He noticed this belatedly and sneered at the offending digits as he tried to scratch a dried stain of black ooze from his knuckles. "I mean the blood. Don't be an idiot" he scolded, barking at me as he did so. "We can't go running around telegraphing our weak spots while there's a crazy bitch stalking us."

His tone irritated me but I relaxed my posture, able to see that there was a logic to this request.

"Show someone where to hit you, and guess what; that's where they'll hit you." He finished tersely, re-crossing his arms over his chest tightly.

I sighed and nodded, dropping my tunic into the lake and watching tendrils of my own blood instantly escape from the surly bonds of the linen and into the water's depths.

"I see your point." I conceded. It had seemed overly hawkish until the reason had been properly explained. Kaiba unfolded his legs and clambered back onto his feet.

"Put on some damn clothes." He snarked with finality as he glanced around the forest, striding off toward the treeline again.

"Where are you going now?" I called from the water, raising an eyebrow as I worked the stain from my sash.

"To take a leak." Kaiba grunted and vanished into the wood.

Slowly I shook my head at the vernacular and turned my attention back to my clothes. The linen was light and airy, floating across the water's surface as I immersed it in sections. I pulled the final section of my robe beneath the water, and was promptly bitten across the palm.

"Ghn!"

Something foreign to my garb wriggled loose from the thicker folds, crawling onto my hand to escape being plunged deeper into the cold water. A pale grey Zombie-typed scarab scuttled up my arm. Swarm of Scarabs had not only survived the Dust Tornado, but had hidden away in my robes.

Its beady rotting eyes beheld me without intelligence and abruptly its body shattered like glass, disintegrating on the wind - banished away.

"What?!" I pulled my hand out of the water as a black speck from the scarab's the tiny bite spread across my palm like ink. It smarted and my fingers twitched unbidden as the dark mark raced into an outline of its own design, forming a brand upon my skin.

Mark of Anubis gleamed against my flesh. With the pulse of a crimson aura it took control.


	14. Chapter 14

**Andro Sphinx**

Placating the palace denizens into complacency had been a simple task.

In this body - the body of the Pharaoh's most trusted and respected champion - there was no suspicion of my duplicity. The priests nodded without protest and accepted my word that all was well and our steadfast young king would return shortly. Taking on campaigns such as these was not unheard of for this boy Pharaoh. It was refreshing for royalty to be so involved with matters beyond the upkeep of their bed chambers and the contents of their evening meal. In another life I might have even respected this Pharaoh's dedication to a more self-involved manner of peace-keeping.

While the High Priest remained unconscious I had delegated the duties of head of state to the Grand Vizier - Shimon Mura. My host believed his age to be matched by his wisdom and he to make an appropriate substitute while the Pharaoh attended to matters elsewhere. With but an inclination of his head the elderly priest had accepted this charge and set about putting the palace to rights in the aftermath of my Master's emergence. Sufficiently soothed, I suspected we would have no interference from the priesthood so long as they remained unaware of our campaign against the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba. It was therefore with abject irritation that I beheld the spectacle Sphinx Teleia insisted on making of the affair.

From a palace balcony I saw the beginnings of her folly. Upon the distant horizon the desert sand had begun to churn ominously, unnaturally. Teleia's intention was predictable. She thought to bury them within the desert's depths. To test the thickness of their skin? Foolish.

On Magical Pigeon's bespelled white wings I had sailed through the open sky toward the source of her spell, yet my small body bore me to my destination not quickly enough. I arrived only to be caught in a gust of wind the strength of which I had never known before. Scooped up in its clutches the storm had dragged me into the maw of some sort of wayward portal. As I tried and failed to fly fast enough to escape its pull I spied Sphinx Teleia watching me from the sands below, her host grinning at me like a temple cat.

How fortuitous it was then, that in being captured by the spellbound tempest I had been spirited to the exact same forest as our foes while she remained in the desert beyond, now a great distance from her prey. Joy was no longer something I was capable of, but I believed if it could be so I would feel it as I imagined her irately fussing with her hair in anger.

Yet I had more immediate charges to direct my attention to...

I perched on a new branch among the other strange chirping songbirds. This forest and these trees were alien to me. Thick. Green. Teeming with life. Not at all similar to the sparse desert shrubs and palms I knew. Something foreign from somewhere far away, much like the Pharaoh's pale companion. No doubt a result of his intrusion here.

From my high vantage point my eyes beheld as the Pharaoh jerked upright from washing his garment, shuddered, and then grew still. Sphinx Teleia's spell had found a mark, it would seem. His eyes beheld the sigil now branding his hand – widening at the comprehension that his body no longer obeyed his wishes, nor could he deny the orders of our cohort with the Mark branding his flesh. While Teleia remained at a distance from this place issuing such orders was a duty that now fell to me.

I had to plan my actions wisely. I would not rush into foolishness and folly like Teleia had. Her drive to battle both Seto Kaiba and the Pharaoh at once was greedy and savage. Just as she was.

To play one boy against the other had no doubt been her intention but her implementation was typically halfwitted. While I concurred that only through debilitation would they each would be conquered in her witlessness Teleia had bound her spell to the wrong foe. A mage of the Pharaoh's distinction would not long be held by the simple magic of Mark of Anubis; Seto Kaiba however was but a mere mortal and would have been far more effectively controlled by the brand. As Teleia had squandered the opportunity to impair the taller boy I would have to draft one of my own instead. Only once they were both at my mercy would victory be assured.

So how best to incapacitate Seto Kaiba?

It needed be a method that the Pharaoh himself could not step in to liberate his companion from as soon as Mark of Anubis's hold over his body inevitably broke.

I ruffled my feathers and a cold breeze rippled through my wings as I contemplated the conundrum. I was no great mage or sorcerer familiar with such spellcraft. It was fortunate then that my host was a magician of great skill. I committed Mahad's knowledge of the mystical arts to the task of rendering a solution given that at my disposal. He did not fight me as I probed him. This surprised me. He was an oddly obliging host. Though I could sense him listening to each thought and watching my every move he did little but observe.

From that which was possible his magical learnings produced a plan.

It was creative and could also turn on me quickly if it were to misfire. A risk. A gamble. Perhaps my host anticipated this.

Very well. Let it be done.

Mark of Anubis responded to my bidding as I called to it, instructing it to puppeteer the Pharaoh out of the water with a wordless thought.

Mahad's heart swelled with pride as the Pharaoh visibly fought the magical compulsion - gritting his teeth and tensing against his own muscles with each unwanted step. He was indeed formidable to resist that much so soon after the spell's casting. I locked his mouth shut, yet he growled and hummed out words in spite of the limitation like a prisoner trying to shout through a gag.

'Give him his voice', a thought bid me and I was unsure in that moment if my host was truly as passive as I had first assessed. Regardless of the origin of the thought, the council was not without merit. One could learn much from a man's words and these boys were no exception. I had already watched them size one another up, loudly quarrel and argumentatively reconcile, then had followed the Pharaoh's line of sight to notice how oddly Seto Kaiba carried one shoulder. I wondered what else might be revealed to an attentive ear and eye.

I hopped from branch to branch to watch the spectacle as I drove the Pharaoh further into the forest in pursuit of his pale companion. He was not far, tensely tending to something with his back exposed. The Pharaoh's arm fought against my command and shuddered and jerked as I compelled it to reach to his armor and draw one of his spells out from the strange deck of cards we each wielded as if they where the priesthood's coveted magical tablets. I did not know the contents of the Pharaoh's 'deck', yet Mahad did. He offered an acceptable spell and as Seto Kaiba turned and began speaking to the Pharaoh I obliged my host's suggestion before the element of surprise could be fully lost. An arrow of magic spirited itself into the Pharaoh's hand and I bid he coil his arm backward like a bow string.

I released his mouth, and then the arrow.

**Kaiba**

Water had got into my lighter. The flame sputtered out twice before finally catching. I'd never needed a smoke break so badly and the first drag was damn near 'godly, if that was what you were into. It was hard to tell if that was the nicotine doing its job or just getting a minute of fucking peace to rally my thoughts without being stared at by the Pharaoh. Sunlight focused through a magnifying glass had nothing on his eyes. I could almost physically feel it when they landed on me even if I didn't see it. I told him to stop watching me, and then I caught myself doing the same to him as he stood there butt-naked telling me about himself like we were pals out on a nudist camping trip.

I suspected his momentary peep show was going to haunt me. I was trying to blot out anything unnecessary I might have seen from my mind. If I didn't it was something I'd be seeing every time I closed my eyes at night. Great. It was a whole new type of vague ghost-magic 'penalty game' and personally I would have taken the attack from a Wicked Worm Beast over that image any time.

Though it was totally impossible each inch of his exposed skin made me more and more suspicious he was some sort of genetically engineered life form. He sure looked like he'd been designed by a committee. He had the bronzed skin, the high cheekbones and the narrow hips, the proportionally wider shoulders and easily as much lean muscle as I'd manage to build up. Sure, he was still amusingly short but he looked compact and stronger for it - not an inch of unnecessary bone or extra pound of fat on his whole body.

Those observations were only academic in motive.

If I did continue updating the Pharaoh hologram after this was over then this was all useful data: the way his muscles moved, how his chest rose and fell as he breathed and the volumes of different parts of his muscle groups meshed together into the cohesive whole.

Given how inbred ancient Egyptians pharaohs were historically known to be a part of me was hoping he'd have some compromising defect I could pick at. Some major flaw, like webbed toes or an extra set of teeth. He didn't. All he had were a few scars and nicks dotted across his skin from a lifetime of rigorous activities; the well-healed ones you collect as a kid that fade to just look as much a part of you as all the unblemished bits and they detracted nothing. They made him look powerful and authentic instead of damaged. Most were probably from some of the hobbies he'd just tried and failed to not look all excited to tell me about. Mundane conversation like that seriously didn't suit him.

There was a pattering sound behind me as something dripped onto the shrubs poking up from the forest floor.

He moved quietly, I'd give him that, but nowhere near as quietly as he'd need to in order to catch me off guard. I stubbed out my cigarette. Two minutes of privacy must be too much to ask for, but then I'd grown used to that while Gozaburo was still kicking.

...

What the hell was he doing?

He was completely sodden, his stupid outfit so thin that the linen plastered itself to his skin and hid absolutely nothing.

"You could have dried them first." I remarked as dryly as I damn well could, glancing over my shoulder at him. He looked composed despite the fact he was soaking wet. It was surreal. Things with him usually were though so it all added up.

Whatever.

His expression was new. He cautiously kept glancing at his hands while curling his fingers and then looking me up and down me, like a window shopper sizing up a questionable purchase.

I lowered my voice. "What's your problem?"

He didn't reply, though he did start fiddling with his Duel Disk. Then he strode closer, water droplets scattering off of the angles of his body as he did so with a weird look in his eyes. Was he giving me the silent treatment as pay back? And he thought I was petty. He probably figured I was going to make another break for it without him. The thought had crossed my mind.

"Would you relax. I'm not going to ditch you." I jeered.

Not while he had the only fully functional Duel Disk at least. I had a lot more riding on this than he did – to him Anubis was just some annoying pest scurrying around his private after-party but to me he was my only way out of this sand-blasted mess.

His eyes jumped from me to the card he had drawn and then he made a noise somewhere between humming and choking before wrenching open his mouth.

"Watch out!" The urgent yell was the only warning I got before an arrow sailed passed my face, clipping me as it flew past my cheek. Great now it was bruised to hell and sliced up.

And did he just shoot a fucking arrow at me?

"What the hell!?" I wheeled around to face him properly as Living Arrow de-spawned in a scattering of golden light.

His face was concerned but his body language was all off – marching toward me swinging his arms with the purpose and intent that last time got me a punch in the face.

"Dodge left." He added, shouting at me with short words. I don't know why I even reacted – like hell I'd do anything he said usually, but for some reason I twitched to the left just in time to avoid getting stabbed in the side as he called Excalibur into his hand and jumped toward me with it. The blade lodged in the tree behind me - formerly the location of my ribs - and his hand coiled around it to pull it out of the bark with a couple of hasty jerks.

"Jump!" he advised next as he swept down low to try and kick my legs out from under me. I hopped on the spot like a damn bird narrowly avoiding the sweep of his muscular leg.

"You want to explain to me what's going on here?" I bit out, eyes glancing down at my Duel Disk.

"Keep your eyes on me -" He demanded. Way ahead of you their, Pharaoh. "- Don't let your guard fall." He finally yanked his sword free, twisting it around in the air and glancing down the blade to inspect it before leveling it back in my direction. "I'm very quick." He cautioned, though not as smugly as he could of.

"Tch." Yeah, he was. I ducked my head as he swung the blade for my skull.

I smirked at the irony. This was rich. Not as rich as I was, but not too far off. "Well look who's the possessed one now." I taunted. "That's gotta sting." I wanted to rub it into his smug face and his responding irritated scowl looked so good I'd hang it on my bedroom wall.

"I'm not possessed. Mark of Anubis is compelling me." He parried prissily, frowning at me openly.

'Mark of Anubis' wasn't a card I was familiar with and I made it my business to know every Duel Monsters card in the game. That meant it didn't exist in the modern world so I let my Duel Disk's readout clue me in on the details. "Activate this card by banishing one Zombie monster, then target one face-up monster your opponent controls; equip this card to it. Take control of the equipped monster." I read out loud.

I glimpsed down at his hand and saw the makeshift tattoo. An angry red light shone out of it in all directions. That meant we as players counted as monsters now. Sure, why not.

"So it could get control of your body but not your big mouth huh? Figures." His frown turned pissy and disapproving, the corners of his mouth down turning like a little kid's.

"Just De-Spell me before I hurt you." He ordered, like I was his damn lackey.

"As if." Like hell I was going to do that.

He was five foot nothing and probably weighed only slightly more than Mokuba. He said he was a fencer but ye olde swordsmanship skills or not I liked my chances here if we were going to duel it out the old fashioned way. And we were; I'd make sure of it. This was all too good to pass up. It was my opportunity to get him back for slugging me earlier – playing around with him a little bit was fair game to even out that score. Once I'd socked him in the jaw a few times then maybe I'd look into fixing him.

Atem's face turned from being disapproving to wary as I smirked at him, like somehow he already knew what I was about to do. The blowhard.

I mentally searched my cards for something to take on him and Excalibur with and summoned the first one that came to mind into my hand. Sword of Soul was heavier than I thought it would have been and I had to grip it's black hilt in two hands like a claymore. "Since your attacking me I should get to fight back." I observed, hefting my blade to get a feel for its weight before raising it into a fighting stance in front of me. The kendo lessons from when I was a kid felt like a life time ago. In fact both my biological and adoptive fathers had managed to die in the interim so I guess they were, in a way.

I felt my mouth pull into a dark grin and in Atem's eyes I watched my reflection become intent with that same primal focus that had served me countless times before like a loyal butler.

"Don't be a fool. Do not allow your curiosity to distract you. This is serious." Atem lectured like a broken reccord, his eyes glancing down the length of Sword of Soul's golden blade before meeting mine again.

"I'm counting on that." I assured him. That just made him glower harder. I was always 'serious', did he not get that by now?

I lunged for him, easily bridging the distance between us and swept my sword forward. It took him by surprise when at the last moment switched up the swing's trajectory to fly over his head at his ridiculous hair. He dodged out of the way but not before I clipped the end of one of those stupid golden stalks.

He watched scandalized as less than an inch of it slowly fluttered away on the wind.

"Mhahaha!"

"Stop enjoying this and destroy Mark of Anubis!" He barked but I could barely hear it over the roar of my own laughter. Looks like someone had reached the end of his patience. Too bad for him; I was just getting started.

I quit laughing and taunted him with a smirk that reflected exactly how little I cared. That was well-deserved revenge for all the wasted hours I'd logged in my lab trying to reproduce his ridiculous hairdo. It'd been impossible to render accurately in my holograms since my data was lacking. How did it act under different conditions? What did it feel like? What was the texture and how should the surface of the strands defuse the light? I hadn't had any of that information and had gone through dozens of holographic prototypes before I was even half satisfied with the result. So much time wasted on something so stupid.

"Hnh. I'll get onto it after a few rounds." I mocked, tightened my grip again, ready to prune some other part of his hair down to size.

He made a growling sound of discontent and then steeled himself.

"I'm an accomplished swordsman and you're not. There'll be no contest between us." He proclaimed with aggravating confidence as though bragging he was so much better than me was going to make me not want to attack him. He was off his game today if he thought that was the case.

"Better stop writing cheques with your mouth, Pharaoh. I'll always cash in on a challenge!" I reminded him as he finally lowered himself into a fighting pose. His glare was intense. I almost could believe he really did want to cut me in half as he jumped at me and pulled his sword back to strike.

"Are you immune to common sense, or do you just choose to discard it as it suits you!" He barked, pausing for a moment as the red light of Mark of Anubis flared again to issue his body another order. "Dodge up and right." He announced.

I did it, reacting to the instruction without a second thought and successfully dodging a blow to my kidney.

"Left-" He added, and I darted left as though acting on his command to avoid being sliced across my right thigh.

"-I got it!" I snarled, blocking and lashing back. Landing any one single lethal blow through my guard would be impossible, I was making sure of it. Looks like he'd decided to just try slice me into lunch meat instead.

With an agility that I was damned to ever admit superseded my own he kicked at the side of my knee cap to buckle it slightly, leapt back and surged forward in a charge before I could recover my footing. He was lighter on his feet than me, I'd give him that, but I was stronger and I'd prove it right here and now! His blade was aimed to my heart but like hell I was going to let it get there. Deflecting it took all my strength, but the feeling of outright overpowering him was damn addicting as his wrist jerked back from the recoil.

He danced out of the way of my blade and turned on the spot in a whirlwind-like counter strike. "Left again!"

"Tch!" I moved to match his order and I hated it. Was he trying to piss me off? "Stop helping!" I shouted and managed to catch him off guard by kicking him solidly in the gut. Twirl around that one, Pharaoh. He bent double for a second and I was reminded that a normal person should feel guilty considering he was under a spell, but I didn't. This was a duel. Everything was on the table. Everything was to be fought for. It was almost like a game of Duel Monsters; eye to eye with Atem, parrying his strikes and watching him counter mine, each exchange edging one of us toward victory without any guarantee of who that person was.

"You kick like a horse." Atem sputtered in surprise, holding his side. Strange, because I hadn't kicked him there.

With an intake of breath he straightened up and in one smooth motion stabbed Excalibur into the ground. His arm whipped around to his Duel Disk, summoning up a card. Gold light illuminated the forest as the yellow tones played across the lean lines of his face.

Atem watched his own arm move out of his control with a muted curiosity, as though he was watching some abstract theatre performance.

"Now you know how Yugi felt during all your duels." I mused with a smirk.

His eyes flicked back to me in an instant. Sure, he'd been disapproving and pissy about our little sword fight but abruptly his expression turned cold and closed off as his stare reassessed me.

"I guess he got used to it." I added, interested in the reaction, wanting to see if I could squeeze it out of him a second time.

His card was played face down, glowing against the forest floor by our feet as he stooped slightly to reclaim Excalibur. "What are you implying, Kaiba?" His eyes narrowed and became less than friendly as he redrew his weapon from the ground.

Well wasn't this interesting.

Yugi had stepped away from dueling – not officially, but obviously. He'd settled down to his school work. It was the honorable thing to do since he didn't win any of the fights that Atem fought for him. I almost respected it. Out of all of the dweebs that made up Atem's entourage Yugi was the only one who I'd consider perhaps entertaining the idea of possibly being 'friends' with, if things had been different; if being 'friends' with people was a thing that I actually wanted. But we weren't and they weren't and it wasn't so it wasn't worth thinking about. In fact thinking about it pissed me off.

I refocused on Atem, itching to push his buttons. "Weird role reversal, huh? Now your in the back seat watching someone else fight for you." I dodged a blow but then caught a kick to the shin in the process. "You know, he never even talks about you." I pressed, trapping and stamping down on Atem's foot with my own as he tried to kick me again. He strangled a yelp, it instead coming out as a high pitched growl. Boots beat sandals in combat, that was for sure. "It's like you didn't exist to them." I taunted, the words rushing out of my mouth with every successful parry and failed dodge.

"You want to talk about this now!" Atem questioned, loudly, angrily. His eyes almost seemed to flare crimson at the idea.

"You bet I do." I liked his response. I was touching a nerve.

Atem's voice softened and his gaze turned inward and pensive. It made for a weird juxtaposition as his body kept attacking without missing a beat. "I'm sure Yugi has his reasons…"

Reasons Atem clearly had no clue about then. For two guys joined at the brain they really had gone their separate ways without a glance back. Using the Battle City Tournament as an excuse to deploy a city-wide surveillance system throughout Domino was the gift that kept on giving. Specially designed sensors searched 24 hours a day for certain keywords and compiled them into a daily report. It was state of the art and flawless and it was how I knew for a fact that Yugi and his little gang never discussed 'Atem' or 'the Pharaoh'.

For a while I'd wondered if the tech was performing properly. I'd been suspicious that Yugi hadn't mentioned him even once but investigation led me to only one conclusion – that Yugi was the asset not performing to my expectations, not my system. It didn't concern me and it wasn't important enough to waste my time thinking about, but I'd expected Atem's impact on his life to be as undeniable as it had been on mine...something that crept in at the edges of his thoughts at odd moments and got talked about in the fallout. Clearly that wasn't the case.

So what even were they to each other?

"They didn't even mourn you." I didn't know why that came to mind.

It bothered me, I realized.

It felt weird to admit to myself, but it bothered me that no one reacted to him 'crossing over' or 'passing on' or whatever the acceptable terminology was. The dead always got a send off; some teary eyed funeral and long boring wake, or in Gozaburo's case a one minute silence at KaibaCorp and a hasty corporate rebranding. It bothered me there had been nothing for Atem except a big hole to fill in with a whole lot of nothing.

He glared at nothing in particular, his focus elsewhere.

"If you have a point Kaiba, I suggest you arrive at it soon." Irritation was in his voice and I noticed he didn't bother shouting which way I should be dodging this time. I blocked his strike to my gut anyway but from the momentum he ducked and pivoted to run his sword across my thigh in a sweeping strike. I hissed sharply as my skin parted beneath his sword, a bit of my blood coming away on it. He followed with a second slice to my upper arm and a third to my shin.

"Yugi… he has every right to forget me. He deserves a life without a shadow at his back" Atem added. His tone was still distracted and thoughtful but his eyes were back on me now.

"Hnh." I couldn't think of a better reply than that, not while he drove me back a few steps with the endless flurry of strikes.

I didn't want to understand the Pharaoh. That hadn't ever been my goal. The only thing I ever needed to know about him was how to beat him. That must have been why it threw me off balance to realize that I could do more than comprehend his feelings- I could also empathize. That was rare.

His sentiment, it was the same way I felt about Mokuba. That skulking fear that it wasn't kidnappers or ridiculous magical nonsense or Gozaburo's 'parenting' that would mark him; but me. That it would be just my existence that would strangle the life from him just by forcing him to grow up in my shade like a plant blocked off from sunlight.

It was a brother's concern. Was that what Yugi and Atem were to each other?

Atem took another little chunk out of me as I halted, suddenly paralyzed by my own thoughts. How was Mokuba? Was time passing the same way here as in the living dimension? The new cuts stung but I could hardly feel them. His investors pitch for his green initiative was coming up; I should be there to sit in on it and make sure it went smoothly.

"Kaiba."

Atem jostled me back to our duel and this time he looked almost contrite. Damn him. He had no idea what I was thinking about and had no fucking right to look concerned!

Despite the irritation a series of conclusions fell into place in my head.

Even if I'd succeeded in returning Atem to the Puzzle things wouldn't have gone back to how they used to be; how I wanted them to be. Instead he'd probably have sat unobtrusive at the back of Puzzle for the rest of our lives, determined to wait things out in there than impose upon his precious host. It would have been a waste to force someone so commanding and so powerful into a mere shell even though the bastard had done exactly that to me when he'd put me in a coma. I wanted him to be, gleaming in gold in the duel area like the Duel Disk color I'd customized for him – not some non-entity waiting out his time in a gaudy necklace.

I'd almost regretted my plan because before it'd been honorless, but now I also realized I'd miscalculated the results too. Things wouldn't go back to how they were. Sealing Atem back inside of the Puzzle wouldn't have done anything except rob him of his individualism, his identity…. An identity he now remembered enough to miss.

"Tch." So I'd be needing my old Pharaoh hologram after all.

Whatever.

It would never measure up to the real thing but I could make it close enough.

If I watched Atem closely I could replicate all of him. I could reproduce how hard and sharply tapered his knuckles were. I could remake the callouses on the ends of his fingers and the prominence of his cheekbones and the tautness of his skin. The smell of his breath; of his body; of his hair – each one unique to him, not just temporarily appropriated from Yugi - these were all things I could simulate. But I needed to know one thing for sure.

Swinging for his head was easy since he was a midget and my consistent strikes to that same point meant I took him completely off guard by dropping down and copying a move he'd made earlier. In one arcing kick I swept his feet out from under him using his own technique and dropped my body weight onto his to pin him to the forest floor.

He looked pretty good trapped between me and the grass and he even flushed a bit. I'd be embarrassed too if I'd fallen for my own move. If he was going to underestimate me then he was in for an unpleasant shock - card games, languages, martial arts, there wasn't anything I couldn't make a quick study of.

Mark of Anubis pulsed again on his hand as he tried to throw me off of him, so I leaned a little bit more of my weight onto him and trapped both his wrists in one hand just above his head.

With the other I slowly reached up and yanked Atem by the hair, needing to know for certain what the real texture of it should be.

"Ow! What are you d-"

"-We're still dueling, remember." I interrupted. It was as good an excuse as I was ever going to get. My hand stayed right there in his hair, snatching a fistful of it to keep him still.

Atem was unsure what I was up to judging by his stupid frown but ultimately could do absolutely nothing but watch perplexed unless he wanted his hair ripped out at the root. Very slowly he leaned into my grip, probably to avoid that very scenario. He stayed silent for once, but I could see his eyes intently darting around my face in my peripheral vision as I tugged on one of the strands.

Wondering what they felt like for so long made it weird to finally hold one of the stupid blonde bangs in my hands. I snagged the one I'd manage to slice the end off earlier and ran it between my thumb and finger. It was smooth; possibly they could be even silky to the touch if the sand and desert wind hadn't dried it to feel coarse and knotted. I'd suspected similar from a visual inspection of Yugi's and programmed a very close estimation into my holographic Pharaoh but no well-informed guess could ever rival hands-on experience. Now I knew for sure. The knowledge wasn't comforting, even as it added to the completeness of my referential database.

Atem interrupted my inspection.

"What are you doing?" He repeated, each word spoken slowly. His eyes narrowed cautiously even as his voice dropped low, so low I could almost have missed hearing it except for an added huskiness that made it cut through the air like a knife.

I glared at him and the unexpected tone. I didn't understand the abrupt change but this experiment was over.

I got off of him and rose to my feet. He caught his breath and after a moment of lying there dazed on the ground like a fish Mark of Anubis's red glow forced him to stand back up sweating and faintly panting. I'd never seen him look like that before.

A bead of sweat dripped from his hairline down his face. I was running around in a now sliced-up flight suit but he was the one who'd be needing a second dip in the lake after we were done here from the look of it. That made me smirk. It was evidence that this duel was more evenly matched than the pompous windbag thought it'd be. I shoved him backward and swung my sword at his just to prove that point and they collided in mid air. He'd recovered quickly. We struggled to overpower each other as my blade scraped against his and the sensation of actual enjoyment struck me like lightening as aftershocks from the clash burst up my arm.

This was fun, I realized. Pointless, but fun. I hadn't done anything 'just for fun' in years. It was novel, though of course for me to really enjoy it there had to be the chance to cause some actual damage as well.

I'd been so caught up in what I was doing that I'd almost forgotten why I was doing it. Across from me Atem leaned into his blade with all of his strength as our swords pushed together. He was actually within arm's reach so fuck this little tug of war. It was time for my revenge. I pulled one hand off of my sword's hilt, packaged it up into a fist and rammed it solidly into his cheek.

He gasped at my avenging punch.

His angry shout of "Are you finished now?" and maligned glare was worth more than my entire bank account.

Yeah, I was. Amusing as it was there wasn't any reason to keep this going.

Before I could reply Mark of Anubis pulsed again. Atem heaved his weight against our weapons and with one less hand hanging onto the hilt, Sword of Soul was almost jarred out of my grip by his push. He was on me in a blink and this time aiming for my heart.

In a last ditch attempt to protect myself I pulled Sword of Soul out in front of me like a shield and it shattered into glass fragments as he struck all the way through it. I gritted my teeth.

"You've lost again, Kaiba. Now end this." Atem pronounced, pointing his blade at my throat as I struggled to recover in time to react. He had another thing coming! I stood up straight and loomed over him with as much height I could despite the compromising position.

"I don't take orders." Especially his.

He deftly tossed his sword into the air, catching it so its hilt now pointed towards me. My eyes mapped out the trajectory as it sailed through the air and flipped in his hand. It was an impressive show of dexterity. It was also a distraction.

With a rush of energy he lunged forward and slammed the hard hilt against my left shoulder.

"Ghn!" I tried to stamp out the instinct to yell; a left over lesson from Gozaburo.

With a little additional leverage against the joint he rammed the hilt further into my body and one final push against it was all it took. The shoulder popped free of its socket. Damnit! How had he fucking known?

I fucking hissed through my teeth at the feeling. I'd forgot how fucking gross it felt.

"Are you alright?" Atem shouted, full of concern judging by the way his eyebrows creased. The question was redundant and I wouldn't have bothered replying even if I had been paying attention to him right then.

"Kaiba?" he demanded. He really couldn't take being ignored for even one second, could he. He just dislocated my shoulder, of course I wasn't 'alright'!

"Shut up!" I snarled.

Atem smoothly stepped back as I lashed at him with a kick and missed. It was hard to aim through the pain. Willingly or not, all of my focus became fixated on the assessing damage. My arm hung limply and spasmed rapidly as the dislocated shoulder sat at an unnatural angle.

Screw this.

I whirled us both around to trap Atem against the tree and then hoisted him up by his neck, enough to make it uncomfortable but not enough to cut off his air. I held him up by one hand and grabbed the other with my damaged arm while Atem lashed out to try and strike me. It fucking hurt to move it, but my grip made up for the loss of my shoulder's mobility. With the correct amount of pressure against his wrist his fingers reflexively loosened and Excalibur slipped through his grip.

I'd taken a lot of blows to lure him in and he'd sliced me up like a loaf of bread and dislocated my shoulder, but I'd finally fucking disarmed him.

"Very good." Atem praised with concern as the sword flew from his hand to clatter against the forest floor and de-spawned. "Now would you finally De-Spell me!"

"Fine." I agreed sourly. It's not like I could keep going at him one-handed anyway and I'd let it go too far already. I should have quit while I was ahead. Actually enjoying myself was a sure sign that something big was about to fuck up and now my shoulder was compromised, however there was the unresolved issue of the face down card lingering by our feet. Who knows what it was, or how it would react given that this 'game' seemed to be treating us as monsters along with everything else in our decks.

"What's your face down card?" I eyed it suspiciously. My paranoia was completely justified. Turning an almost certain loss on its head with a final card was Atem's stock and trade after all.

"It's –" Atem began to reply confidently and then abruptly paused. The confidence never left his face, even as he slowly closed his eyes and admitted boldly "I don't know."

"You don't know?" I repeated through gritted teeth. How the hell could he not know his own card?

"You were distracting me as I drew it. I must have never looked, you ass!" I'd never heard him outright curse me out before. I'd let it slide since it was almost amusing, and because this was the Pharaoh. There'd be a queue of people lining up around a Domino city block just for the chance to do the same but I'd never let anyone else get away with it.

"You have only yourself to blame." He defended, Mark of Anubis compelling him to thrash in my hold and only stilling when I made my grip on his neck just tight enough to become restrictive.

"Great." I replied tonelessly. "We'll just have to find out the old fashioned way then."

Atem remained silent and didn't even bother to preach to me what a bad idea that was. Good. Let him save his words because we'd wasted enough cards on this little intermission already and I wasn't going to burn a useful mitigation combo at something he'd just thrown down without enough thought to even bother remembering, Mark of Anubis or not.

For lack of a better way to trigger the damn thing I kicked it with the toe of my boot.

Dragon Capture Jar reared up from the floor as the mystery card was revealed. The card art was as familiar to me as the back of my hand. If I made a list of all my most hated cards it would right up there with Kuriboh and Wheeler's idiotic gambling cards. It wasn't a mainstay of Atem's usual decks; he must have added it in at the card selector just to piss me off. Bad move.

"There are no dragons on the field, you dolt." I observed.

Atem looked just as confused as I was. He raised an eyebrow at the card. So even the 'King of Games' could screw up, but only if he was being possessed by something. His hand whipped back to his Duel Disk to pull a following card. Some sort of combo then?

"There's more." He cautioned, watching his fingers as they tensed.

His hand moved with that same speedy flourish as always, but I could see this time he managed to catch a glimpse at what he'd drawn. His eyes opened a little wider even as his hand slapped the card down and into play.

"I'm playing Polymerization." He noted, the card rendering into existence in gold particles at the exact same time so he may as well have saved his breath.

"I see that." I replied, unimpressed.

With Sword of Soul destroyed there were no monsters left on the field to fuse together.

The wary curiosity that filled Atem's eyes as he watched himself implement the card turned abruptly to a grim realization.

"Watch out, it means to-" and that was the last thing I heard as the Duel Disk registered the fusion command with a muted beep.


	15. Chapter 15

**Mokuba**

"Tszzt. Tszzt. Tszzt."

Ugh. Seriously?

I blindly groped around for my phone. Who calls at - I cracked my eyes open and squinted through them. It was light in my bedroom. Like, really bright. Like mid day bright.

Did I sleep through the whole morning? So much for a quick nap.

"It's Mokuba." I reported into the phone - as if the person calling on this number didn't already know that.

"Mr. Kaiba -" Oh, it was Roland. Weird. He sounded serious. "-The security team has reported intruders on the premises. Please be vigilant."

"Intruders?" Suddenly I was wide awake and jamming the phone into the crook of my shoulder so I could keep talking as I pulled my clothes back on.

"And they didn't trip the proximity alarm? Where are they?" I demanded.

Whoever it was they were in for a nasty surprise - Seto had been working on something for the mansion's security system before he'd left and I had no idea what it was. People didn't try breaking in here often enough for it to have been tested yet but knowing my brother it'd be all kinds of lethal. There was no mercy given to anyone cowardly enough to come after us where we slept.

"They climbed in through a window on the first floor. They were last seen holding up in the study in the east wing. Please remain in your room until the situation is resolved, Mr. Kaiba."

As if! That was the study down the hall - the one I'd been working in, and I'd left Seto's blueprints out on the desk like an idiot!

I hung up on Roland and sprinted down the corridor. There was a commotion up ahead; a lot of loud footsteps running around and shouting but I wasn't afraid. This was my home. I knew this place like the back of my hand. There was a bust of some lady on a plinth right opposite the study door and I ducked behind it to watch what was happening.

I peeked inside and immediately recognized the 'intruders'.

"Intruders located." One of the more junior guards reported into his ear piece as he rounded the corner. Fuguta followed behind him at a sprint. Good thing too, the rookie moved to pull a gun on them but Fuguta stopped him with a hand gesture before he could pull it out of his jacket.

"Whoaaaah!" Joey shouted.

Looks like he recognized the gesture. He threw his hands in the air. Yugi must of missed it. He glanced from the guards to Joey and back again looking a totally lost and belatedly copied Joey. It was almost funny to watch.

"We ain't intruders!" Joey barked, like a dumb kid arguing he didn't deserve a detention. He turned from the rookie guard to Fuguta. "Yug's been here before! You've seen us both like a tonne a'times!"

Yugi nodded along with Joey's words and added onto them, trying to go the diplomatic route as normal.

"That's right! I'm-"

Like there was anyone who worked directly with my brother who didn't know who Yugi Muto was. I think Roland and Fuguta even kinda knew when it was Yugi in control and when it was the Pharaoh. As much as they could know it, anyway.

"-I'm sorry Mr. Muto, but your name is no longer on the mansion's Permitted Persons list." Fuguta promptly cut him off. "Both of you are trespassing." His tone was sympathetic, but stern.

"Oh." Yugi replied. The sound was half confused and half questioning.

Joey hadn't ever been on it to begin with of course, but Yugi had ever since Duelist Kingdom. I dunno if he was more surprised that he'd actually made the list in the first place, or that he'd been removed from it.

Whatever. It was time to break this up before the rookie accidentally shot Joey or something dumb.

"Seto took you off it a few months back." I informed them, taking a step through the doorway.

Fuguta looked at me and moved out of my way to let me passed.

"We're sorry to wake you, Mr. Kaiba." He added.

"I see." Yugi murmured to himself softly.

Joey's way too loud voice almost drowned it out. "You were sleepin'? It's like three o'clock in the afta'noon."

It was three? Already? Jeez. I shrugged the information away and ignored Joey to speak over him to Fuguta.

"It's fine. You guys can lower the alarm." I told them. I didn't exactly want a visit from these two right now, but throwing them out didn't seem right... not after all the times they'd helped me and Seto out.

"Yes, Mr. Kaiba." Fuguta and the other guard replied, loudly and promptly, like they had just been given an order by my brother. They bowed at the same time and left the room. Fuguta closed the door behind him but I could still hear him talking to his earpiece through the wood as he called off the search.

"Sorry for this. We tried the front door first, but your butler turned us away" Yugi explained wide-eyed. He seemed earnest.

"So you just thought you'd climb in a window?" Man you couldn't take your eyes of Yugi and his pals for a single moment - they got into such weird situations.

"That was my idea!" Joey bragged, puffing out his chest and jabbing his thumb into it to look all impressive.

"And that seemed like a good plan?" Of course it did. When these guys got something into their head they usually seemed to pull it off no matter what. I squinted at them in mock disbelief and stifled a yawn.

"Man, you look like a zombie-" Joey poked playfully. Yugi added at the exact same moment "-We can come back later if now's not a good time."

Did I look that bad? I rubbed my eyes and glared at them, suddenly feeling self-conscious and a lot less amused. "Matter of fact, no, it's not a good time. But since you two just broke into my house I guess you have a good reason?" I replied, just focusing on Yugi. I wasn't sure I could handle them tag-teaming a conversation right now.

"Some house-." Joey quipped.

"-I." Yugi began and then frowned like he was deciding what to say. "I wanted to see how you were doing... after the museum."

Oh yeah. That. Hard to believe that was just yesterday.

"I'm fine." Weird how reflexive that reply was.

"Suuuure ya'are" Joey drawled.

Yugi looked just as unconvinced. "You don't look fine." He agreed gently as he glanced around the room. They weren't going to let up and I was running on fumes.

"I stayed up all night working on something." For some reason the second bit felt like a confession. Maybe because it was opening a door for them to pry into our business even more. Hell, a sentence like that pretty much invited them to stick their noses in. They didn't disappoint and I felt gross for failing to live up to my brother's philosophy of never relying on anyone else, but it was a relief.

"You were working on this?" Yugi homed in on the blueprints on my desk like a missile. He picked the top one up really gently but I still had to fight the urge to slap it out of his hand. Those flimsy sheets were my only chance to get to Seto.

He turned the sheet over slowly as he read over the tiny scrawling notes and formulas crammed in next to circuit diagrams and design schematics. I don't know if he recognized Seto's handwriting from the hot second they were all in high school together. Maybe.

"It's what Kaiba used to cross dimensions?" Yugi observed, guessing it all in one.

No point lying and it was pretty obvious when the blueprints were piled up all over my desk.

"Yeah. H-" I was going to ask how he'd known but a lump caught in my throat. Suddenly I wanted to bawl again and I wasn't going to. I nodded my head as Yugi read the words "Dual Dimension System" aloud from the top of the first sheet. It was the only bit written in plainly.

"Heh. Sure sounds like somethin' Kaiba would come up with." Joey scoffed.

"What language is this?" Yugi questioned, squinting at the tiny characters.

I shrugged, taking that last moment to try squashing down that urge to just loose it. "Could be anything." My voice sounded level. Yugi raised his eyebrows at me. "Seto speaks like eight languages, and on top of that it's encrypted into a code." I explained.

Seto only encrypted his schematics if they were super important and always made the keys something personal to him. That basically meant as the person who knew him best in the world if I couldn't crack it, then no one could. It was all on me. "I was trying to figure out the cipher all night... but I haven't yet." Even if I figured out the encryption key there was no guarantee I'd be able to understand what he'd written. I only spoke five of the same languages he did...

"'Written in code', like a spy?" Joey added from the side. Ha. "Why would he do that?"

"Are you kidding me?" I asked. Joey wasn't that stupid. "It's a defense against corporate espionage. KaibaCorp has way too many competitors and all of them would love to get their hands on Seto's designs..." I trailed off. That was all true, but I left out the bit I wasn't sure I'd be able to say out loud.

"And?" Joey pursued, inspecting a desk ornament and not really paying attention to his own question. That made it easier to answer.

"And...Yeah, okay; there's no point stealing something you can't read and no one reads anything my brother doesn't want... but I'm pretty sure Seto specifically encrypted this to keep me out of it."

I didn't want to think that way but after trying all his normal encryption keys I was feeling sure about it.

"Well yeah-" Joey replied absentmindedly as he fiddled with the ornament. "If I went n' died I sure wouldn't want Serenity coming afta' me." There was a crinkling of paper as Yugi lowered the blueprint back onto the desk and I could feel his eyes on me, watching for my reaction. "That ain't what yer plannin', is it?" Joey asked, glancing over to me as well and lowering his eyebrows to look serious.

I scowled at Joey and then sighed. "Kinda." I shrugged and broke eye contact, trying to be casual even as I could feel my eyes start to itch. When he'd first said that at the museum he'd thrown me for a loop but I'd thought about it since. In fact I couldn't stop thinking about it. Yeah, he was right. The description was technically accurate but saying it that way made me feel... beaten. Defeated. If Seto was here he'd never give up, but I wasn't my brother... He'd opened a door into the afterlife and I couldn't even manage to crack open a window to get him back out. "I just want my brother to be alright." I added as I turned away from them. If I was going to cry I didn't want them to see it. Not again. "And I don't really have any other choice."

"Ah crap. Sorry Mokuba." Joey huffed and butted the heel of his hand against his head. "I didn't mean it like that. 'm sure Moneybags is fine." He tacked a mountain of false enthusiasm on the top like it was reassuring.

"Actually, I think there is one." Yugi contradicted, going back to my last comment and looking pensive and distracted as he stared at the blueprints for one more second. "I've been thinking about it since the museum-" He continued, frowning. "I don't think any of us need to go to the afterlife – we just need to send a message over there." He explained.

"What'ya thinkin' Yug'?" Joey asked curiously.

I glanced upwards to find Yugi watching me closely. His face was so determined it was like looking at the Pharaoh. "You were right about what you said, back at the museum. I - I should have tried harder to reach out to your brother after Atem left..."

"Yug'-" Joey murmured, sounding consolatory.

"Kaiba was always more interested in Atem than me and I guess..."

He kept trailing off and I stayed dead silent. I wanted to hear this.

"...I look so much like him; I didn't want to show up and remind Kaiba of someone he'd lost."

Oh.

I didn't know what to say to that.

Just with those words it felt like this stone of resentment I hadn't really even acknowledged carrying around at the bottom of my gut softened up a bit. I thought Yugi had just ditched my brother and forgotten about him but it turns out he was trying to spare his feelings.

"Thanks Yugi..." I really meant it. "-For thinking about Seto." I belated added. 'Like my brother was a person, with actual feelings' was the bit I didn't say.

"Anytime." Yugi's sad face put on a sunny smile and he gave me a brisk nod. "I meant what I said. You're my friend and so is Kaiba, and I'll do whatever it takes to help my friends."

It felt a little late in the day to be setting out to try and prove that to us but I liked his determination. It made me feel like this could really work!

"Right! Now I just have to figure out these blueprints." I announced, feeling a sudden burst of energy pick me up. I marched back over to the table they were on with new enthusiasm. "If I can build a new Dual Dimension system then I can use it to send a warning about Anubis into the afterlife!" Just like a message in a bottle. It would take a while to crack the code and then even longer to put the pod into production but I'd spend the rest of my life on this if that was what it took to get my brother back.

"Why don't we just tell Atem not to duel?" Joey proposed so nonchalantly it was painful as he went back to fiddling with a decoration. I felt like my eyes were going to burst out of my skull as I stared at him googley-eyed.

"You can do that?" They could do that? That was an option?! "Why didn't you say that sooner?" I demanded.

"Woah!" Joey shouted, accidentally snapping off the top of the ornament and waving his hands in front of him like I'd just threatened to shoot him.

"Well I dunno if we can-" he hastily backtracked "-but ehhh, when I was gunna' lose my memories in Diva's weird world Atem just showed up all of a sudden and helped me out - just like he did for Yug' at the end of their duel." Joey nodded in Yugi's direction, probably searching for back-up.

Yugi frowned like he was troubled by Joey bringing that up.

I in the meantime was pissed. "So Atem took the time to appear to you two but couldn't fit my brother into his schedule? Was he really so busy being dead he couldn't move something around?" I demanded.

"Hey! Don't get mad at me." Joey defended.

"Each time-" Yugi began, hesitantly, "-We were in real trouble. Life or death. That was probably it."

I groaned. Of course it was something like that. Why wouldn't it be. But even that logic didn't hold up. "Diva straight up erased my brother in that same duel and the Pharaoh didn't show up for him even then." I challenged.

"I'm sorry Mokuba-" Yugi muttered and he really did sound sorry. He had to look away from me before he could get the words out. "I really don't know how it works, or why it happened at all."

"Whatever." I jerked my head away from them both and didn't even bother trying not to sound bitter.

"It probably also takes a lot of magical energy to appear in our world like that, even temporarily -" Yugi continued to muse in the background while holding his chin. "-or else deceased people would cross back and forth a lot." He was pretty much just talking to himself at this point. "Atem did it, but he couldn't even speak and his magic is really powerful." He hummed.

"Yep!" Joey added not so helpfully, shoving his elbows in the air and knitting his fingers behind his head as he casually stepped away from the broken ornament. "Rest'a us would probably need a Millennium Item or some crazy magic thing ta make it werk."

Seto had used the power from Diva's Cube to cross over...

"That's it!" I shouted. "We can use the Quantum Cube!"

"Ehhhh. You sure that's a good idea?" Joey yipped, raising an eyebrow.

"Nope." I glanced back at Yugi. He was eyeing me speculatively. He looked a lot like Atem when he did that. I smirked at him. "But I still wanna give it a try." He watched me for a really long moment as his eyes went all over my face. "If you'll help?" I chanced.

Even juiced up with the Cube it wasn't like the Pharaoh was going to appear to me. If anyone was going to reach him, it would be Yugi. This wasn't going to work without him.

He looked really hesitant for a split second, then covered over it with an intense determination that looked really weird on his features. "Alright, but just this one time. Just to get Kaiba back." The overly serious way he said that last bit made it clear he meant business. For a second I didn't get why, until I figured it out. If this actually worked and Seto ever found out about it then my brother would totally abuse the information.

"I won't tell Seto." I assured him. If keeping this a secret from my big brother was the price for getting him back then who cared. It wasn't like I didn't have other secrets from him anyway, and he was still trying to hide the fact he'd started smoking from me for some reason. "Let's go get the Cube then!" I threw back over my shoulder as I made for the door, and had to turn back around to reply to Joey's yelp of "It's here?"

"Sure is." I winked at him and walked out into the hallway. They didn't move from the room for a moment, then jogged out to catch up to me as I kept going down the corridor.

"In the mansion?" Joey continued.

"Yep." Ha, cute. He was probably imagining a pathetic little lock box hidden behind a painting or something like in the movies.

I tossed a grin over my shoulder at them and stepped into the library.

"It's secure in our underground vault." 'bunker' was a more accurate description but whatever. "You guys do remember this used to be the residence of a globally renowned arms dealer, right?" And a fairly crazy one at that. Gozaburo had been determined not to give anyone the satisfaction of killing him off - you could nuke the mansion and all the underground areas would still be fine.

"Why not keep it at KaibaCorp?" Yugi frowned, bumping into me as I stopped in front of one of the bookcases. I peeled a book off the shelf by its spine and pressed my thumb against the fingerprint scanner behind it. When Gozaburo was alive all the mansion's hidden switches where crammed behind books on military history and philosophy. Seto had thrown them all out and replaced them with ironically titled books about dragons by some obscure author I'd never heard of. Probably so the passageways would be easier for me to find as a little kid.

I shrugged, tossing 'The Dragon's Treasure' onto the floor as I did so. Who said Seto had no sense of humor. "It's safer this way." I answered.

KaibaCorp wasn't immune to hostile takeover or outright invasion - as waaay too many people seemed determined to prove. If anyone found out my brother was currently out of the picture the company would be a pretty appealing target so better to play it safe and keep the Cube here now that Seto didn't need it up on the space station anymore. If the mansion's vault was good enough for his Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards then it was good enough for anything.

With a beep the scanner accepted my print and the bookshelf retracted into the wall on a previously invisible metal track.

"Coooool." Joey cooed, stepping into the hidden elevator and pressing his face against the walls for some reason without hesitation - like this was all another fun adventure.

I followed him in with Yugi trailing me close behind and pressed the descent button.

We were gonna make this work.

**Atem**

The magic of Polymerization eclipsed Kaiba in a halo of light, cloaking his body in a blinding veil that I was forced to shield my eyes from.

Kaiba had been right, of course, and also simultaneously wrong - as was his habit. While there were indeed no dragons on the field at a glance that was hiding the presence of the monsters Kaiba's Duel Disk had unsummoned earlier. Of the two of them only one was a dragon type and a target for the Dragon Capture Jar.

Mark of Anubis had set the fusion into motion and I stepped backwards, imagining whatever the end result of a fusion between Blue-Eyes and her master to be, it would no doubt be both cantankerous and deadly.

My assumption wasn't far from the truth.

Kaiba's humanoid silhouette was remade in a blaze of talons and wings. A long tail grew in and thrashed behind the rapidly growing body of a creature now more dragon than man. It roared angrily as the spell completed its work and receded, dimming against the monster's pearlescent scales until it was gone. Where Kaiba once stood, now only this new creature remained.

The dragon was a strange hybrid. While undoubtedly a Blue-Eyes for lack of anything closer to equate it to, its body was much slimmer than those of the true Blue-Eyes White Dragons that slumbered in Kaiba's deck. It was broader and squarer across the withers and its sleek body tapered inward towards its flanks with arms that were longer, less vestigial and more practical. The left hung loosely in comparison to the right and the dragon coiled that arm closer to its underbelly protectively just as Kaiba had held it against his body.

"Kaiba?" I questioned, unsure if I was to be dealing with man or beast, or some strange mixture therein.

He snapped in my direction - his crushing jaws gnashing at me in warning; one that I chose to observe. Since fulfilling my destiny and arriving in this afterlife I could now remember my upbringing. I could recall that a I had spent a childhood among the likes of the palace horses, dogs and cats and recognized an animal's distress easily. The dragon reflected a beast's panic - his chest rapidly inhaling and exhaling like an overworked bellows while his nostrils flared and constricted at a speed that spoke only of confusion and fright. Perhaps Kaiba's mind wasn't present in this new form.

The dragon's neck warily snaked around the forest, peering through the trees and then screamed a deafening roar into the air. The ear-splitting sound sent the birds fleeing from the treetops in a noisy cacophony of frantic wing beats and flashing feathers. The songbirds disappeared into the sky and by a trick of the sunlight gleaming over their plumage for a moment I believed myself to have even spotted a single white dove escaping with them.

The Blue-Eyes stole the moment back to him with a second mad roar, more desperate then the last.

"Be calm." I told the dragon, taking a sure but slow step toward him. He hissed in warning as his eyes darted around. "It's okay." I tried to reassure him.

He was apparently less than convinced. He reared back a little to assess me with his tail whipping behind him, sizing me up as his jaws tensed. For a mere moment everything was absolutely still.

And then the dragon decided that moment was over.

I jumped away from him, narrowly avoiding being swiped by his tail as he madly slashed at the trees that surrounded us on all sides and smashed his head and tail against anything that his arms couldn't reach in a dire frenzy. He raised its head up again and again, bellowing his angry cry into the wind as though calling for something.

Calling for another was so contrary to Kaiba's personality. I couldn't imagine who he thought would answer but if Sphinx Teleia was by some miracle oblivious to our whereabouts she wouldn't continue to be for long.

"Stop. Be quiet." I firmly ordered the dragon as I would have done my young stallion, unsurprised to be willfully ignored just as I likely would have been were Kaiba still a human.

As though to deliberately defy me he threw his head back and loosed a final thunderous chorus and then fell silent to stare at the sky beyond the tree line of the newly made forest clearing. The breeze pulled leaves along on it, but not the reply he had been hoping to hear.

I hoped that rebellion against my command was a sign of Kaiba's consciousness lurking somewhere inside the dragon's mind. The alternative - that Kaiba's stubbornly contrarian nature had been absorbed into the heart of his cards and his dragons along with it would prove difficult to contend with.

Against the heavy weight situation I slightly smirked.

Being 'difficult to contend with' was Kaiba's defining feature. Attractive and frustrating all at once. It was almost unthinkable to wish him to be any other way. Regardless if Kaiba could hear me or not, I refused to treat this new form any less than I had treated the old one. After all, had Kaiba not always been a dragon at heart?

I chuckled and approached the white monster. Confidence heated my expression as though this were just another march to a dueling platform. The dead leaves of the forest floor crunched beneath my sandals as I took each step toward him to close the distance and his draconic eyes turned back on me in a heartbeat.

The Blue-Eyes coiled his neck backwards and snarled at me as fiercely as he could as I entered what I had observed to be his striking distance. He opened his maw as widely as possible to bare his long and deadly fangs at me. Instead of attacking outright it was a warning to stay back, to stay away, and it bolstered me. Intelligence gleamed brightly in his eyes beneath the confusion and panic. Too brightly to be the gaze of a mere monster, no matter how magnificent Kaiba's dragons might be.

I needed to confirm it.

His eyes narrowed in challenge as he watched me take a second step into his personal space and a third and I was thankful Mark of Anubis felt no need to issue another command to complicate matters as I did so.

He growled viciously as I stood close enough to reach out to him, experimentally flexing his claws as though preparing to rend me. The monster's expression was familiar, even painted over a dragon's features. Kaiba was still present. Of that I had no doubts.

"You suspect who I am, or you would have attacked by now." I noted.

Calling Kaiba out was as pleasing to me as it was infuriating to him. Even if he couldn't understand my words or see me clearly, there was no escaping my familiar tone. I pressed the palm of my hand to his new form's muzzle and rubbed my thumb across the pale scales as his ferocious growl faded, becoming softer and irritated instead of hostile.

After a deep inhalation the Blue-Eyes blinked, slowly.

His reptilian eyelids closed not vertically like a humans but horizontally like a lizards and his pupils seemed to switch as this happened - the pure blue membrane of Blue-Eye's normal eyes receding into his eye sockets to leave behind only a pair of rounded blue irises, identical to Kaiba's own with the exception of a snake-like vertical pupil.

His growl finally softened into silence as the almost human-like eyes warily roved over the scenery again as if seeing it for the first time.

"Kaiba." I greeted - this time sure of exactly who and what I was addressing. It seemed he had managed to regain his wits.

He stared at me and opened his mouth to reply with some no doubt dead-pan rejoinder.

"Garoooh."

The draconic bark that came out of his mouth instead of normal words took us both by surprise and Kaiba sneered at self-made sound, as well as his new snout could. He huffed in irritation, seemingly taking this new development in his stride as he instead inclined his head a fraction in silent affirmation. It wasn't a large gesture, but it was enough to set me at ease.

"Polymerization fused you together with the Blue-Eyes that was banished earlier." I explained.

'You think?' or something to that effect was the clear message given in his steady answering glower. Merging in part with Duel Monsters or taking up their weapons or physical feats was hardly a new experience to Yugi, myself and our friends but Kaiba had never been present for such misadventures. To him this was all new and no doubt very strange but judging from his usual surliness he seemed to be taking the development well enough.

I lost his attention as he craned his neck around to test his new extremities, beating his tail against the floor and flexing his wings. The former he regarded with the look of someone testing the durability of a new weapon while the later he examined closely with a sort of wary reverence I had never seen Kaiba apply to anything other than perhaps his real Blue-Eyes. He fluttered the leathery limbs cautiously, watching them move very carefully.

He made a handsome dragon, which seemed fitting as he also made a handsome human. I paused at that thought. The comparison was apt but the thought itself surprised me. Did I consider Kaiba to be 'handsome'? It certainly wasn't a characteristic I recalled noticing while I was in Yugi's body. Before I had time to turn it over in my mind a noise from behind my back drew my notice. The sharp whistling like air being drawn into something made me turn and our twin oversight startled me.

"The Jar!" In the clamor of Kaiba's transformation both of us had forgotten the Dragon Capture Jar that lay behind us.

Kaiba's head reared up at my words as the Jar began to rattle and quake, sucking spare leaves and soil into its maw as the intensity of its vacuum continued to grow. I turned back to Kaiba, shouting to be heard over the growing whistle of the Jar. "Fly away!"

It whipped up a wind around us as it continued to suck in everything it could in an attempt to consume its target. Kaiba growled with effort as he dug his claws into the ground, the talons of his right arm leaving behind deep trenches in the forest floor as his draconic body was slowly pulled toward the Jar as though it were a wind-made whirlpool. He heard me and glanced up at the sky, eagerly extending his wings outward before flinching violently and hesitating. His wings lowered a fraction and the Dragon Capture Jar needed no more time to do its work.

Kaiba's front and back claws snatched into the earth as deeply as they could, but ultimately the magic of the Jar proved undeniable against his new dragon form. With an angry snarl his body was lifted by the Jar's will and catapulted towards it, his white hide magically compressing and vanishing into the Jar's much smaller opening in a flurry of scales and lumps of loosened earth.

The forest clearing settled and grew silent and still in the aftermath of the Jar's capture.

"Kaiba!" Sprinting back to the jar robbed the breath from my chest far more easily than it should of. I ignored that as I shouted Kaiba's name into the Jar's opening. My words echoed around it's magic depths back into my ears but there was no reply.

"Ghn! What?" I snatched at my wrist as the brand pained my hand anew with it's searing aura. Mark of Anubis flared its grim aura once more and this time reached deeper into me that it had dared to pry before. With a renewed malevolence it slithered its influence through my body and I found I could barely move as my palm burned as though it had been lit on fire.

"Very clever." Purred a feminine presence from the depths of the remaining forest. With difficulty I turned on my heel, already knowing the source. Isis's noble voice was turned vulgar by Sphinx Teleia's tone.

"Sphinx Teleia." I growled out between gritted teeth as I glanced around the now decimated tree-line, my eyes squinting into the darkened space between the wounded trees to find my opponent.

"Turning Seto Kaiba into a beast so you could snare him like one – how very like you." Teleia continued to loudly compliment, even though I'd done no such thing. She lounged in the priestess's stolen body against a half-destroyed tree trunk in a picture of nonchalance. "But as you know full well. I. Do. Not. Share. My. Prey." Her mouth turned upwards into a malicious glower as my eyes met her own.

"Release us!" I demanded with a loud command that frightened a small bird from its perch. It could have been a trick of the light, but in the periphery of my vision I saw a flash of white as I heard the bird hastily flee in a flutter of quick wing beats. There wasn't time to dwell on it. Not while the sight made Teleia's foul smirk grow ever darker.

Her voice lowered to become softer and more threatening as she spoke again.

"My, my. Now it's just you and me, my Pharaoh." She cooed, her words growing dark and feral as the familiar voice of my trusted priestess was corrupted by this cruel intruder. "I would prefer it if the Master was here to witness my victory." Teleia pouted while tapping one of Isis's fingers against her lip. "But sadly he is indisposed."

"Indisposed?" I grunted, my eyes narrowing at the odd piece of information. As of yet Anubis hadn't struck out against Kaiba and I directly since Soul Release had banished him from the duelist's body. That didn't match the fallen sem priest's egotistical temperament; one ever eager to personally bring his enemies to heel.

_"If he has claimed a new host then he may bide his time."_

Mahad's theory seemed on track to be proven correct.

"There is no need to pull such a face." Teleia purred from across the clearing, attracting my attention once more as she feigned nonchalance and picked at the hem of Isis's robe. "For his absence does afford me certain-" Her lips lifted at the edges of her host's mouth to form a wicked smile. "-liberties."

With a lazy outstretching of her arm she extended the limb in my direction, curling her finger towards me twice as though to silently beckon me to her side as if I were but a servant. My foot caught on a half buried tree root as the Mark abruptly spurred me forwards to meet her.

I gritted my teeth. How dare she turn my own body against my will. She would pay for it and for manipulating Isis's as well. I would be free of her and exact my justice.

The simplicity of that decision filled me with a heady feeling. Retribution was not something I recalled enjoying while I was alive, but as I had emerged from the Puzzle in Yugi's body it had felt natural to me to seek justice on his behalf. Claiming vengeance against his transgressors had been a singular light guiding me down a very long and dark hallway as each penalty game fed me a taste of a power I'd long forgotten. I had reveled in it and now it would seem the echo of that elation lived within me, with or without my consent.

With each step the finer details of Sphinx Teleia became sharper. Previously hidden among the forest shrubbery Mummified Fruit waited at her back and the obsidian plumage of Hieracosphinx met my sight, the shape of the monster looming large as it reclined in the split trunk of one of the now damaged trees. The sphinx screeched at my approach and sank its deadly claws into the bark of the bough it lounged on as it pecked at me. The Mark didn't permit me to duck and its drill-like beak struck me squarely in the back of the head as I came to stand at Teleia's feet. My migraine flashed in white hot pain and only after squeezing my eyes tightly shut and holding them so for a few seconds did the pain pass.

"Usually I must make do with unseasoned scraps." The Sphinx continued, clicking her tongue harshly against her teeth in annoyance. "But this once I may take my time and ensure your flavor is to my liking." She added with sinister enthusiasm, reaching out to my face and harshly clasping my chin. Her nails pricked the skin of my cheeks. My skull seared with pain as I fought to free myself from her hold and was rebuked by her Mark. "And there is no sweeter taste upon my tongue than the glorious spice of absolute terror." Teleia concluded, her voice dropping to but a low whisper as she ghosted her words across the shell of my ear.

"Then prepare to be disappointed." I taunted and steeled myself against her incursion, willing myself to break free of Mark of Anubis even while my head began to feel as though it was splitting under the spell's overbearing aura. "I've defeated greater opponents than you, Teleia, and your end will be no different." I assured her with confidence as I focused my efforts on freeing myself once more. Usually such a spell would pose me little challenge but as I urged my body to resist I was answered by a sting of a rapidly growing exhaustion. Something wasn't right here. A bead of sweat dipped down my face and I could no longer even lift my arms to wipe it away. They hung by my sides limply as I stood in Teleia's grip, as though I were but a puppet and my strings had been severed.

Was this what Yugi had felt in the beginning of our partnership? Beholden to an ill will that stole control of his body and transformed it into a vessel of its own dark agenda?

"We shall see." The Sphinx grinned, the maliciousness gleaming in her eyes like the blade of a knife drawing my attention back to her as she watched my face. With a flick of her hair she turned her attention over my shoulder and barked out a harsh command. "Mummified Fruit, I have finished with you." She remarked curtly, showing her monster no respect. "Die, and fuel my Shadow-Revealing Mirror." She commanded in sharp biting words.

In my peripheral vision Mummified Fruit sagged on its stalk before its body abruptly burst into black flames. The Fruit withered as it was tributed, burning and crumbling to ash while the fire engulfed it. "If any fear beshadows your heart, then my Mirror will find it." Teleia cooed, reaching into the smouldering corpse of her monster and pulling from the remains a bejeweled golden Egyptian hand mirror. A dark blaze danced around its edges in heatless tongues of magical flame while a malevolent spirit wearing a wide smirk that matched Teleia's own laughed in the Mirror's gleaming depths.

"Let us discover it, together." She bid me with finality, gleefully pulling me against Isis's chest and holding the Mirror at arm's length above our heads.

**Yugi**

The ride down into the Kaiba vault wasn't long. Joey made me grin as he yawned and stretched, grazing his knuckles against the elevator ceiling. He was so casual about all of this. It was impossible not to feel at ease. Not a second later Mokuba covered his mouth with his hand, trying to hide a yawn of his own, but unlike Joey I think he was actually beat. The three of us together like this reminded me of the first time the three of us had set out to save Kaiba in his virtual world. I just hoped we could pull it off again without Atem.

Of course we could. The Kaiba brothers were my friends and I'd make it work, for both their sakes.

Mokuba yawned again beside me. He looked tired and his eyes were a bit red - not wet, just red. It looked like he hadn't been sleeping well. I glanced back to him as he rubbed them and straightened up his neck tie. His expressions were starting to look more like his brother's when he was mad and his voice kept breaking but he was ignoring it. He was growing up really fast, in a lot of different ways. Always having to watch the situations Kaiba got himself into would probably do that to anyone.

This time was different though. Kaiba hadn't been kidnapped or blackmailed. He'd left willingly. Maybe that was what had Mokuba looking so stressed?

"You're really worried about Kaiba" I noted as the elevator came to a stop. The lights in the room beyond came on automatically, the timing between each bulb lighting up was a little staggered so they seemed to lead your eyes deeper into the back of the vault like something out of a movie. It looked pretty overly-dramatic but considering whose vault this was that all made sense.

"Of course I am, he's my big brother!" Mokuba answered quickly and a little curtly. His expensive-looking shoes pattered across the metal floor as he led us into the vault.

"More than usual." Joey added nonchalantly, catching onto my meaning. I nodded. I was hoping Mokuba might talk to us about it, it looked like he was holding a lot in. Maybe it was a family thing?

With a frown Mokuba turned away and pretended to ignore the question. He stopped right in front of a thick steel door and busied himself with a few different security panels. The metal doors to the deepest part of the vault opened with a muffled hiss. A little mist rushed through the crack as they parted and the temperature dropped like I'd just opened up a refrigerator on a summer day.

"Woah!" Joey's mouth hung open as a space the size of an art gallery opened up in front of us with thousands of cards kept in hundreds of trays behind thick glass walls. It was a vaguely pyramid shaped room, but where all four of the sides should have met together to form a point like the tip of the Millennium Puzzle it instead just kept going up in a long vertical shaft that seemed to defy conventional design rules. A machine had been built into each large rectangular display case and gave off a faint hum like an air conditioner that you could only just hear through the glass, but stranger still was how the display cases lined the walls from the bottom to the very top, far up into the distance towards the ceiling. Even Kaiba would only be able to reach maybe the first three rows of cards before they got too high up on the wall for him to look into.

"Yeah, you said it." I agreed, almost wordless. This was... well I guess this was what having a limitless amount of money to fund your favorite hobby looked like. Something was off about this place though. It didn't feel right.

Mokuba rolled his eyes. I guess stuff like this was everyday for him.

"There's got to be one of every single card in here!" Joey exclaimed, sprinting around the displays divided up by card type, monster species and level.

"Hehe." I laughed awkwardly at his enthusiasm as he splatted his hands and leaned his face against one of the glass panes to peer inside of it. Mokuba grimaced at the smear of fingerprints he left behind. I always knew that Kaiba had a big store of cards somewhere given how frequently he turned up with briefcases full of them, but seeing it in front of me was a different thing completely.

"Three, actually." Mokuba replied tonelessly. What was going through his head right now? I wonder if he got the same feeling down here that I did? Being in this room was uncomfortable. Upsetting. I didn't like it and I couldn't place why.

It was excessive, maybe that was why? I rethought that quickly. To a professional duelist having a big pool of cards to choose from was a normal investment and Kaiba had been a Duel Monster's champion for a long time, back before any of KaibaCorp Duel Disks or holograms were a thing.

That was it. I'd figured it out! I knew what it was!

Kaiba had collected all these cards, but now he didn't even use a physical deck to duel. All of the cards locked up down here were destined never to be put into play; to just remain part of Kaiba's stash. He was like a dragon hording treasure.

"Each card tray is hermetically sealed in a temperature-controlled environment." Mokuba remarked casually, walking up a small flight of stairs and across a raised up plateau over to a central console that probably controlled the room. "Open them up a thousand years into the future and they'll all still be as good as new."

"Why? Kaiba plannin' on freezin' 'is brain or somethin'?" Joey smirked, perusing through some of the cards in one of the 'dragon' monster trays.

Why was a good question. Despite how diligently he preserved them Kaiba would never use ninety nine percent of these cards in a deck of his own so he must be keeping them just for posterity. It was like he was keeping an archive of cards; entombing them all down here in perfect condition... like an ancient Egyptian priest might have done with the stone tablets of his time. Was doing this was just in Kaiba's nature? Something deep down and left over from being a reincarnation, just like I was?

"Dammmmn! Yug' come see!" Joey called out from across the room. My footsteps echoed right around the room as I walked over to him. "Look how creepy this is!" he laughed, apparently not picking up on the heavy atmosphere or grave-like feeling of this room at all. He pointed and snickered as Mokuba followed me to see what Joey was laughing at. "Could Kaiba be any more obsessed?" He taunted.

"What do you mea-" I started but stopped mid sentence as I got a good look at the thing that he was mocking.

It was an epitaph. Well, not really. But it sure looked like one.

In an alcove to the side of the main vault stood a massive sculpture of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and in the safety of its arching wings lay three isolated cards in their cases. Kaiba's Blue-Eyes cards, and it looked like they'd received special treatment. The cases themselves were more modern versions of the ones that lined the walls of the main vault; sleeker, and covered in complex holographic read outs.

"My big brother made these cases himself." Mokuba remarked, giving Joey a chilly look.

"That kinda proves my point." Joey snickered, not at all phased by the subtle reprimand.

A set of numbers flashed across the glass of each one and it took me a moment to realize what the numbers actually were. Temperatures. All three cases had been set to a slightly different temperature within a couple of decimal places.

"Why are the storage temperatures all different?" I wondered out loud.

"They vary depending on each card's cumulative time spent in my brother's hand. Those chamber are all uniquely customized for each card – to keep them pristine after their years of use." Mokuba answered promptly. "Seto says just holding a card causes the transfer of body heat, oils from your skin and stuff like that, and it damages them." He added, peering into the cases the make sure the numbers were correct and adjusting one slightly using a keypad on the pillar's side.

Joey frowned "Uhhh, wouldn't Kaiba have t'know which of the three cards was which to do that?"

"Yep." Mokuba agreed.

"How? They all look the same." Joey leaned over the three identical Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards and jutted out his chin in thought. I understood his confusion. All three of them were in mint condition and there wasn't any foxing or wear and tear to tell them apart. Considering all the duels in crazy places Kaiba had put them through they looked immaculate.

Mokuba peered over Joey's shoulder. He pointed to the one on the far left. "That one there, I think that's the first one Seto ever got. There's a little stain in the top right-hand corner. Two and Three look the same to me though." His eyes were warm as he looked over the three cards held in stasis but his words were cool and impersonal; like he was trying to hide how much he liked them.

"A stain?-"

"-I don't see it."

Joey and I spoke at the same time as I squinted at Kaiba's first Blue-Eyes card. Even knowing where to look I couldn't see the mark Mokuba was describing but there was a small flash of something white peeking out from underneath the card now that I was examining it so closely. Mokuba only shrugged. "Well whatever. I don't think he cares too much about the rest of these cards, but only the best for Blue-Eyes."

It felt wrong to see the cards that Kaiba clearly adored sealed away down here. I could almost hear them, the Blue-Eyes and the Heart of Kaiba's Cards with them all singing together sorrowfully in this vault. I frowned at the dragons. "But don't you think that's sad?" Mokuba raised and eyebrow and tilted his head to one side. "That they're down here while he's using holographic versions instead?" I clarified.

Mokuba looked at me like I'd gone crazy. "These cards mean everything to my brother. Why risk taking them out if a hologram will do the trick?" He asked. The idea seemed to confuse him. How did I explain it to someone who wasn't a duelist? I tried to think of an example that might make more sense to Mokuba.

"Isn't enjoying something while it lasts and knowing it'll end better than locking it safely away and never looking at it again?" I chanced.

"Depends who you ask." Mokuba replied smoothly. His tone carried a bit of a warning.

"But I bet they'd rather be with your brother no matter where he is than in here." I gently pressed.

Mokuba seemed hesitant to reply, staring down at his feet before squaring his shoulders. He looked back up skeptically. "... You know they're just cards right?" he taunted without much conviction, trying to brush me off.

Even if you forgot about all the ancient Egyptian connections, Blue-Eyes was more than just a card to the Kaibas. It was an icon. It was the statue outside of their main headquarters, the shape of Kaiba's personal plane and the graphic on the company construction signs. At this point it was more synonymous with the Kaiba brothers than with Duel Monsters itself.

"I don't think that's true." I smiled at Mokuba. "And I don't think you think that's true either."

He watched me closely, his uncertain expression becoming more upset with every second and then glanced at the three cards solemnly.

"You really think they can tell that they're locked up down here?" He asked softly.

"I do." I nodded back.

Mokuba seemed to debate something for a moment and then his brow creased as though he'd come to a decision. There was a scattering of button presses on a control panel and a click as he deactivated the security locks. With a rush of cold air three dragons were released and he gathered up each of them, shuffled them into a row and stowed them in the inside of his suit jacket.

"Uhhh, you allowed t'do that?" Joey questioned skeptically.

Mokuba scoffed. "How about this. We'll give Seto three seconds to come back from the afterlife and tell me to put them back and if he doesn't then I guess it's fine." He bargained. I glanced at Joey and he grinned back at me as Mokuba counted down three seconds on his fingers. "-Yeah, we're good." He announced as he reached zero.

"Man, you're gonna be a fun teenager." Joey teased, nudging me with his elbow a few times as he smirked across the room at Mokuba.

Mokuba grinned back for the first time since we'd come down here, a little tiredly but honestly. "I'm thirteen in four months. I basically already am a teenager." He protested, pretending to be offended for comedic effect. His voice cracked a little as he said that which made Joey laugh.

"Now stop drooling over my brother's cards and get over here." Mokuba continued in a much friendlier tone than he'd been using since we'd first shown up at the mansion as he began walking away in the opposite direction from the sealed dragons. Apparently the Cube had a private vault all of its own off to the side in a matching alcove. "This is where we're keeping the Cube." He explained as he lead us into the new section of the vault.

I followed after him as Mokuba pulled out its tray and stood to the side, waiting expectantly for me to pick it up.

"Hey, Mokuba-" Joey called from behind me, his sneakers squeaking against the floor as he abruptly stopped for a minute and then jogged back over to us. "-Y'dropped this."

Mokuba and I looked down curiously at the small rectangle of white card in Joey's hand as he held it out.

The younger Kaiba's eyes went wide for just a second. "I didn't know Seto still had that." He sounded surprised, his eyebrows jumping up his forehead. Even though he clearly recognized whatever it was he didn't make a move to claim it so I gently pried it from Joey's fingers, glancing at the other side of it curiously to see what it was.

"Did you make this?" I asked with a soft smile, feeling all the affection that had gone into the hand-drawn Blue-Eye's White Dragon card and the messy hiragana that surrounded it.

"Yeah, a long time ago. Before Seto got any of his actual Blue-Eyes cards." Mokuba explained, keeping his tone overly casual. "I guess it's just trash now, since he has the real deal."

I doubted that. Especially if his brother had been storing it behind his very first official Blue-Eyes White Dragon card as I was guessing.

"I don't think Kaiba would keep it down here if that was the case." I noted, trying to read Mokuba's expression without any success. His poker face was much friendlier than Kaiba's but was starting to become just as inscrutable.

Mokuba shrugged my comment off as he turned his attention back to the Quantum Cube. "You can ask Seto yourself once he's back." He concluded as he nodded his head towards the Item in a silent invitation for me to pick it up. Him being so dismissive seemed odd, but he was right. It was time to get back to saving Kaiba.

My hand was steady as I took the Cube from its tray and turned it around in my fingers a few times, staring straight into its eye and getting the weird feeling it was staring straight back.

For a moment I wondered if this was a bad idea – if I'd given Mokuba false hope. I almost wished Atem was still here to fill me with his confidence. It wasn't the first time I'd caught myself thinking that way but it was the last. I had the memory of his friendship to treasure forever, and that wasn't all. I was his reincarnation and deep down I trusted his strength was there inside of me, just like a priest's need to archive the stone tablets was somewhere inside of Kaiba.

"So what ya gonna do?" Joe questioned.

"I don't know." I answered truthfully. "But we'll figure it out. Together." I was certain of that.

"You know it, Yug'."

"How did you used to make the Puzzle work?" Mokuba asked. His eyes were narrowed as he stared very intently at the Cube in deep thought, like he could glare it into bringing Kaiba back.

I contemplated the question carefully.

"The Puzzle used to active on it's own. I don't think I ever really did anything." I'd been caught up in everything as a passenger rather than an actual participant when I'd first pieced the Puzzle together and despite being sealed inside of it Atem hadn't remembered enough about the Puzzle to tell me how it worked.

"The Pharaoh probably had yer covered from 'is side."

"I guess so." I answered a little awkwardly and looked down at the Item. For me things had always just seemed to happen when I needed them to happen. Pegasus, Ishizu, Marik – any one of them would probably know more about getting a Millennium Item to work than I did. Mokuba and Pegasus apparently had a way to contact each other and we knew he was currently in Domino. We could start by asking him. He'd had full control over the Millennium Eye back in Duelist Kingdom – maybe he could give me some pointers. I wiped my wrist against my forehead at the memory of it, suddenly feeling hot. All of this was starting to make my head hurt.

"Sup' Yug'?" Joey asked abruptly, pulling my attention back to him. Had I spaced out? Mokuba was suddenly staring at me wide-eyed, like I'd grown another nose. "Yer uhh, head is glowin' a bit-" Joey mentioned, struggling to sound casual about it but succeeding.

Suddenly I felt weak and my legs turned to jelly. A bright light behind my retinas came on so quickly I didn't have time to react. It swallowed my vision and made my ears ring and then the room tilted strangely.

"Yug'!"


	16. Chapter 16

**Sphinx Teleia**

Andro Sphinx thought he could fondle my prey as soon as my back was turned. Pah! He should be only so lucky! I share with no one!

Hieracosphinx had spirited me into the air atop its back and for dreadfully dull night we had flown in circle upon dreary circle, hunting the desert for another chance at our delicious young foes. The lack of result had begun to grow dismally tedious and then, sweetly, Mark of Anubis had found itself a fresh body to bind upon. After that finding my quarry had become child's play. The Mark guided me to the forest and then the screams of a wild beast had called me further. What nerve Andro Sphinx had to be already there and playing with my food without my permission! I had snatched control of the Mark from him as soon as I was close enough. Where he had flown off to I did not know, nor did I care.

The Pharaoh was before me now, pressed against this body and already damp and slicked with sweat. The sun licked the beautiful beads from his brow and neck and I was jealous of it for doing so. I wanted to taste him for myself, but it would be an utter waste to consume him before the exquisite taint of fear flavored his meat to my liking.

"The Master's Shadow-Revealing Mirror is a wondrous spell, is it not?" I praised; and a tool befitting a beauty such as myself. It reflected the Pharaoh in its gleaming surface, his expression becoming one of stone-like contempt as I hooked my finger beneath his chin to tilt it towards me and stroked the sharp curve for but a moment to whet my appetite. I was hoping for a reaction to savor just as amusingly prudish as his companion's had been but he remained silent and poised. Beyond a narrowing of his eyes I was denied any his expression of dismay. How dismal. How very dismal! It was time to alter my approach. Next I raised the palm that wore Mark of Anubis to my lips and licked it, allowing myself a small taste of his skin. It looked so good on him; staining him as an object of my possession, ready for consumption.

Now that action did not go unrewarded.

Those fiery eyes of his blazed with hot ire. He panted slightly like an exhausted bedfellow and shuddered as he struggled to remove himself from me but it was all for naught. With each stifled motion the parting gift of my Poison Mummy coursed ever more eagerly through his veins. I held him still and steady against me with little effort. I had been told the Pharaoh was born the most powerful mages alive. How marvelous that a little poison and the lesser spellcraft of Mark of Anubis should be his undoing.

"The Mirror pries into the heart of its victim to reveal what it is they fear most." I continued, wanting to see the moment that true understanding of his current predicament leeched into the Pharaoh's face with beautiful terror, as it had so many before him.

"You'll regret this." He growled threateningly, tone tight with a barely sheathed anger, then fell silent. It may not have been the realization of powerlessness that I hungered to see, but it was a fetching expression nevertheless as he looked breathtakingly unhappy. His sour look grew hard and ever stiffer, pricking at the corners of my mouth. Good.

I buffed the priestess's nails against her ugly robe and countered with "No, I don't believe shall." The Pharaoh watched my every movement like a hawk. It was so enjoyable to have a captive audience! I tossed the priestess's hair over my shoulder and gave him my best smile. "I am enjoying watching you struggle too much." Truly I was. The taste of his desperate resistance was a fine wine upon my talented tongue. "Now, let us see what the Mirror finds."

Inch by inch I compelled him to turn his head to the Mirror's surface as Mark of Anubis smouldered and smoked from his skin. His eyes shone like freshly spilled blood and his expression promised nothing but unrelenting wrath as they met my own reflected in the object's depths. Though his stare never relented in its terrible promise the Pharaoh's attention was turned to my Mirror as the heckling little spirit within chortled with glee, finding something worthy of my pursual in its victims heart. Our reflections were replaced in a swirling blaze of shadow-flame as the image within remade itself into something other than our faces.

I did not recognize the unfamiliar antechamber that appeared. It was barren and hollow; little more than a labyrinth of empty corridors and doors with stairs that led both everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Braziers and sconces threw a dim orange light across the walls and yet in the many places the glow did not touch the shadows were almost blacker in depth than even my own Master's sorcery. The Pharaoh stiffened against me, silently gritting his teeth and widening his eyes as the hallway narrowed in at the sides of the Mirror's frame, the shadowy walls seemed to tighten and encroach as the corridor all but collapsed in on itself.

How dull.

I was expecting the Pharaoh of Egypt to have fears more kingly than the halls of his own palace, or whatever this pleasureless place was.

"What an utterly unremarkable fear." I sneered, deeply unimpressed. The Pharaoh's breath caught in this throat as he continued to behold the reflection, but it did not interest me. "Let us find one more-" I licked my lips "-tantalizing."

I wished for something more scandalous to soak the terror into his flesh. With a tap against Shadow-Revealing Mirror's surface the delightful devil that within loosed a lovely snicker and looked elsewhere, the image held trapped within the Mirror's frame swirling like a great whirlpool of obsidian fire before reforming into something new.

I felt the corners of my host's mouth split into a wide grin. _This_ was the sort of thing I had been seeming. _This_ I could use.

"Even though I don't have a card that will keep you from attacking, I think I still have a strategy that will stop you in your tracks..."

Though clearly another place and another time judging from the bright colors of their garbs and strangely made palace walls the reflections of the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba were as familiar as ever. A festering lump of a monster lay between them, limbs lax and rotten and a skull bursting out of its melting flesh. A sumptuous haze of decay lingered so thick in the air that it was visible.

"Even though I don't have a card that will keep you from attacking, I think I still have a strategy that will stop you in your tracks."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to force your hand and win this battle, Yugi." There was a dark resolution shining in Seto Kaiba's eyes as he walked backwards to firmly place himself on the cusp of the platform, ready to be thrown from it to what appeared to be certain doom. To my delight, it was the Pharaoh that was to be his executioner!

"Kaiba! Stop this!" The pale Pharaoh's face was a handsome picture of bared teeth and sharply furrowed eyebrows.

"Your move, Yugi. You can attack my Blue-Eyes again and wipe out my remaining Life Points but if you do the resulting shock waves might cause me to lose my balance." Seto Kaiba explained, lacking both fear and hesitation.

"Don't tempt me." The Pharaoh warned, his dire words fighting his perturbed expression, yet there was a steeliness to the set of his jaw that assured me the statement was more than a bluff. He was willing to commit the act – the determination to so do lived in his eyes. It was a beautiful sight.

"My fate is completely in your hands, Yugi. You'll decide this duel one way or another. Of course if you don't surrender I might be hurt. You wouldn't want that, would you?" Seto Kaiba goaded. He smirked and chuckled, closing his eyes with a victor's confidence.

"I'm warning you Kaiba, don't push me too far! I must win to rescue my grandfather-"

"-And I must win this duel to rescue Mokuba. The difference is I'm willing to risk anything to do it." The pair faced each other grimly as Seto Kaiba continued, "You know I can stand up here all day, Yugi and I'm certain you won't make any attack for fear that you might knock me off, even though you know by not attacking you give up the only chance you have to save your grandpa-"

"Hrrrr." The Pharaoh growled, a bead of sweat beneath the crown of his hair dipping down the side of his face. I licked my lips at the sight of it.

"-which means I have the advantage over you, for in my case there's nothing holding me back." With a smooth motion the reflection of Seto Kaiba plucked free a card from the device on his arm and beckoned one of the heads of his waxing beast back to life, ready to devour the Pharaoh. I cared little for the terms and words his mouth disgorged as he did so, needing to hear only "-our Life Points are equal Yugi. Strike now if you dare, otherwise next turn I swear I'll take you down." to understand that this moment was to be their battle's brilliant climax.

The reflected Pharaoh's eyes widened and his teeth finally ungritted themselves as he stared openly at the taller boy.

"Surrender Yugi!" Seto Kaiba demanded, his face becoming gaunt and hollow as his voice raised to a coarse shout and dragged his thumb across his neck as though to slit his succulent throat, "Unless you have the courage to unleash your attack!"

With a twitching expression the Pharaoh beheld his foe, limbs quivering with barely veiled energy. There was a moments pause as he remained trapped in indecision before his expression set and his eyes narrowed.

"Kaiba, I've never backed away!" He thrust out his arm, choosing to attack, the intent to end his foe's life clearly cut in every line of his reflection's slender white body. "And I'm not starting now!" With a furl of green he bid his monster to end Seto Kaiba's life and as the warrior surged forward my Mirror's laughter began anew and swallowed the scene until all that remained were our own reflections in its surface.

By my side the true Pharaoh's arms hung lifelessly at his sides as his empty gaze remained fixated on a Mirror. The pupils of his piercing ruby eyes were tiny and flickering in distress while contrition claimed his face in all the corners irritation had not yet filled.

"That was a mistake." He proclaimed into the wind as the breeze blew dust and sand around us, sounding bold even while daunted. His gaze became regretful and flickered backwards to the Dragon Capture Jar as quickly as a snakes tongue licks the air, but not quick enough to escape my very keen eyes.

"Fu fu fu fu." What a gloriously despairing reaction. Though companions in this duel against my master based on the previous interplay I had witnessed between them and their obvious lack of trust I had assumed their fellowship was one born of utility than camaraderie, like my own deeply distasteful association with Andro Sphinx. I did not realize he harbored some affection for the other boy. This discovery was wondrous. One simply begging for abuse!

"They say that what great Pharaohs fear most is not the loss of their own lives-" I purred into the Pharaoh's ear, "-but that of those for whom they care." I told him. How wonderfully disarmed he looked by those words.

I smirked, recalling the canyon I had beheld while in the air atop the back of my Hieracosphinx that lay at this ugly forest's back. It was no palace wall, but it would suffice for the purposes of a recreation and my indulgence would slay Seto Kaiba as well. I had my precious Master's work to do after all.

"Let us put that notion to a taste test." My Mark upon his skin pulsed dark red like a lover's bruise, willing the Pharaoh to stay still and stiff as I sauntered back to the Jar containing his comrade.

"Teleia!" An abrupt sound of struggle was torn from his soft and pretty mouth. My red-eyed captive gritted his teeth with a newly lit fierceness. He made a wonderful picture. "Your battle is with me!" He sank his teeth so deeply into the flesh of his lips that blood blossomed from them as he fought his own limbs. His body jerked but did not obey beyond that and I was impressed by the abruptly kindled resistance, though it burned against my interests. "And we're not through here!" His lithe little body continued to flinch and shake against the compulsion of my brand as he fought its magic. There were flames in the defiant stare he attempted to sear me with. "Leave Kaiba alone." He decreed, his shout heated enough to make my Hieracosphinx screech behind me. Blood dribbled from his lip down his angular chin and the carnal sight was made even better by his formidable expression.

"Oh I shall not be not be harming him, I assure you." I leaned against the large lizard-faced urn and traced a tiny circle onto its side. The little Pharaoh glared ferociously as though he would pounce on me like a vengeful lion if given the chance. How fetching. I narrowed my eyes, eager to feast on his reaction to my next words. "For it is _you_ who shall be his executioner." I proclaimed, as I kissed the jar I was reclining against and pulled a new spell free from the shell on my arm.

"Call of the Mummy, bring forth something to do my heavy lifting." I bid the spell with a flip of my hair, stepping to the side as from the earth at my feet burst forth two simple wooden caskets. They creaked open, the glorious smell of fetid breath and dead meat perfuming the air as a pair of Wandering Mummys lumbered free of their coffins.

With a final flick of my fingers toward the Jar I wordlessly commanded my new servants to pick up the Dragon Capture Jar and drag it where I bid.

**Atem**

Where was she taking us?

"It is a shame. I wanted you to die first, Pharaoh." Sphinx Teleia's smirk was feral and cruel as she led me away through the trees, the inert Millennium Puzzle bumping against my torso helplessly as I stumbled through the forest behind her at Mark of Anubis's instruction. I was beginning to feel faint and it was difficult to concentrate on my opponents words. "I had not yet finished playing with Seto Kaiba." She lamented maliciously. "But beggars cannot be choosers and I have the Master's duel in win".

I refused to indulge her sadistic baiting as I squinted at the horizon to catch a glimpse of a stream of light penetrating the tree leaves and cutting through the woodland shade. The glow steadily grew up ahead at what must be the forest's edge. It embraced us as we crossed toward the threshold of trees and Kaiba's unbidden Japanese forest began to thin out and gradually cease. The grass under our feet crawled onward to venture across the landscape of its own accord for a few minutes before abruptly ending as it met the more familiar white-gold sand of my afterlife. The arid terrain was comforting to see once more but extended only a few steps and then was replaced by the harsh red rocks of a jagged chasm, yawning before us in all directions.

I knew this place but to have any hope of rebelling against Mark of Anubis I had to keep my mind clear! If I dwelt on the vista then my concentration would break, and my power over this situation and even my own body was already slipping through my fingers - edging toward escaping my grasp completely - with each passing breath.

With a wave of her hand Teleia ordered her Wandering Mummys to set down the Dragon Capture Jar, positioning it precariously on the canyon's edge.

No! She didn't mean to - ?

But the placement could be no coincidence. Teleia's Mark of Anubis and my own Dragon Capture Jar were poising me to repeat one of my greatest shames far too accurately for it to be anything else but a grim re-enactment of that fateful duel atop Pegasus's castle.

"Come." The Sphinx bid me, stepping to the chasm's edge and sweeping her hand over the sight of the canyon below. "Come and see." With every shred of resistance I refused that order as the Mark flooded my body with its compulsion, draining more of my strength. My limbs seized as though struck by lightning and then were marched to Teleia's side by force; my fists clenched and shoulders shivering. The spell craned my neck downwards and toward the pristine oasis nestled at the canyon's heart. The blue waters glittered and sparkled in the sun like a rare jewel.

"Such colors." Teleia cooed at my side, regarding the view with a lurking maliciousness. "Your companion will no doubt add to them as a lovely red stain on the canyon floor." She snickered. I gritted my teeth at her words as she continued, each sentence more languid and mocking than the last. "Dragons must have more blood than men. I wonder how far it will paint the rocks." She tapped her bottom lip, feigning consideration before deforming Isis's mouth in a truly evil smile. "Let us find out together."

Casually she tossed away her Shadow-Revealing Mirror to free up her hand and plucked a wet card from her Duel Disk, placing the slick offering into my outstretched palm as though it was a generous present. "Use this. Call back from the grave the spell that your irritating little Magician used to burn my body!" She commanded with wicked glee, a vile joy heating her tone. Teleia's gifted Spell Reproduction card levitated out of my hand as Mark of Anubis activated it in my place and a spinning arcane glyph enshrouded it, flipping the card in the air until the art shifted to that of Mana's Dark Burning Magic spell.

"No!" I growled out as my hand twitched manically and began to spark and crackle with black electricity, the spell pooling there and growing into a mighty charge of offensive magic. The warmth of it heated my palm as it gathered against my will. Within a moment the strike would be ready to blast the Dragon Capture Jar from the edge of the chasm, killing the occupant within!

Fury at Teleia's cowardly attempt on Kaiba's life and remorse cut through my heart. Feeling helpless was not something I was accustom to, but in this moment I could do nothing but watch in quickly building fear as Dark Burning Magic coalesced into a powerful orb of destruction.

I understood it now; why Yugi had cried in Duelist Kingdom as he pulled dominion of his body and deck back from me, saving Kaiba's life.

I hadn't known Kaiba well enough at that time to see any merit in standing down. I had only seen a prideful challenger demanding I surrender to him, or end him. My decision had been decisive and simple: I could not trade his life for Yugi's grandfather's and Kaiba was a worthy opponent even though he'd tested my patience. He'd made no secret that he would die for his cause and given me no other choice; granting him the request had seemed appropriate. Yugi was wiser and had known better. Without his intervention Seto Kaiba's life would have ended there and then.

Now my unbridled wrath was to be visited on him once again. Here, of all places. My pulse pounded in my ears at the realization as my heart thundered in my chest.

Man or dragon, it didn't matter, the picture of my mind of Kaiba's body lying among the stones, long powerful limbs snapped like tree branches, skin bruised blacker than the nightsky and his white coat turned red with blood made my stomach lurch and brought bile to my mouth. The sickly feeling didn't stop as Teleia's Mark raised my arm and peeled my fingers backward to aim my palm at the Dragon Capture Jar.

The magic in my palm filled, fully pooled and ready for release.

"Grhng!" I fought the Mark once more and it drove me to my knees, paining me in malevolent reprimand like a wall of knives pricking every inch of my body even while ensuring that my hand never once lost its aim on the Dragon Capture Jar. Everything flashed as I fought not to black out, nearly loosing both my footing and consciousness for a fraction of a second.

From Teleia's mouth came a low dark chuckling that grew in madness and pitch into a shrieking laugh every bit as deafening as the screeches of Hieracosphinx as I steadied myself. I clenched my jaw against it, willing myself not to buckle. I had heard this sound before many times from the mouths of many different villains. It was the laugh of a conqueror, a victor, one bereft of sense or sanity. She sensed it as well as I did; that my control, or what remained of it, was gone. I tasted sourness, felt a stab of ice-like grief and behind it a blazing ire at my inability to overpower the Sphinx's spell and reclaim myself. Was this the limit of my strength?

"Now, fire!" Teleia ordered.

The blast of Dark Burning Magic released.

I heard my own shout echo in my ears as surely as a second silent rendition raced outward from my heart. My breath stopped as Mark of Anubis held my limbs steady and I waited for the crash of the Jar shattering on the rocks far below. I closed my eyes, unwilling to stare across my lands and commit to memory every cloud in the sky and rock at my feet as I heard the Jar containing Kaiba shatter into nothing.

The wait lasted forever until finally I understood the meaning of the deafening silence.

I'd heard nothing.

"What is this?" Teleia shrieked from somewhere.

She sounded so distant as my roared in my ears and all of my attention was drawn to my hand. A warm feeling floated onto my skin, tentative, gentle, like a stray feather touching down upon the surface of the Nile. It was near imperceptible, yet somehow formidable enough to have mitigated my spell from firing by simply covering my palm.

My eyes took such effort to open and for a moment I was unsure if I had managed to do so or not.

While precariously placed, the Dragon Capture Jar remained as it had been, unmoved and unharmed but someone else filled the foreground of my vision. The sight of a very similar face met mine, worried, a little confused and achingly welcome. Had I lost consciousness after all and fallen into a waking dream woven from the threads of wishful thinking?

"Yugi?"

"Atem!" No sound came out of his mouth as he silently called back, but kneeling in front of me like this I could see his lips mouth the syllables of the name we had discovered together. His face was close enough to touch, though I knew already from the ethereal translucency of the astral projection that to do so would be impossible.

He nodded enthusiastically and then his expression turned worried as he examined me at length, his warm purple gaze gliding across my features. For a moment his eyes shone bright with worry and then that moment was gone and a steady determination settled over him.

He nodded to me with slightly narrowed eyes. "Leave it to me." The look on his face said.

Though he was but a ghost in my world I leaned into his grip on my hand, glad for his silent support. There was a sensation of soft heat; a phantom touch, or the illusion of it. I couldn't describe the depths of the relief his presence - his determined expression - filled me with as he glanced upwards at our foe with a stalwart vigor.

"Ishizu?" He questioned without speaking.

"Isis." I explained, understanding his confusion, "And she has been possessed by one of Anubis's minions". The woman in question watched us carefully through narrowed eyes, a feral hunger glinting in them as the roved over Yugi's body to assessed exactly who and what he was. As glad as I was for Yugi's presence her expression didn't bode well for him. "It's good to see you, part-" I began, and then the cruel glyph sizzled on my skin hotter than a lit coal as Sphinx Teleia beckoning me away from him. "-Hrrr!"

"What's wrong?"

With silent words of worry Yugi's mouth opened in silent shock as I could do nothing but close my eyes and bare the Mark's evil. Its bloody scarlet aura exploded outwards to apply more pressure to me. I resisted it and as though our thoughts were still joined Yugi pulled me further toward him. He frowned at the angry black stain that my hand now bore, turning my hand over with his to the Mark from different angles before glancing back to my face in question.

"It's one of Anubis's vile spells-" I forced out though gritted teeth, answering him as best I could between awkward lungfuls of breath, feeling exhaustion's bite. "-one of dark compulsion!"

Its bloody scarlet aura exploded outwards to apply more pressure to me, painting the landscape in red light and Yugi's brow creased in concentration in response, focused on the brand with the utmost intensity. The Mark intended to force my palm out of his grip, but his hand became firmer around my own in reply - unwilling to let go. A foreign, intensely disturbing sensation rippled outward from the place that our hands met.

This was... I gasped in shock as the unfamiliar feeling of another's Ba poured into me.

As it had been replaced with the Life Point counter in the Duel Monster's card game Ba had no outlet in the modern world yet Yugi's body still held a reservoir of it lying dormant within him. Now through benevolent force of will alone he channeled it from his body and into mine, sharing it with me – the intimate and heady rush of another's spirit uniting with my own making the blood pump hard in my veins. It was not his magical potential or any acrane training that made this exchange so, but his deep and truest intent to help.

His generosity and the undeniable strength of his friendship nearly stopped my breath as the warmth of Yugi's spirit began filling my own, rekindling the fires of my body and breathing life into the ashes and embers. The numbness in my arms faded and the headache pounding drum-like in between my eyes dimmed to a dull ache as his energy restored me. Mark of Anubis's dark arcana lessened and faded as Yugi's own boundlessly benign Ba countered its evil spellcraft. It was unlikely Yugi even knew fully what he was doing. His eyebrows shot upwards toward his hair as I relaxed into the feeling and leaned toward him, grasping his hand tightly. He couldn't know what was happening – how eagerly I was accepting the gift of his spiritual energy but he smiled in understanding nevertheless as I struggled not to overstep my bounds. His expression grew dizzy and fatigued as mine grew more alert with every moment. "Be careful Yugi." I cautioned warily, resisting the temptation to take more from him than he could comfortably offer.

Mark of Anubis flared again, yet its grim crimson aura was easily overcome by the golden aura permeating my skin from Yugi's body. The malicious scarlet gleam was driven back inside of the brand, no longer able to stain the surrounding with its malevolent hue as the answering gold aura from our combined Ba banished it back into its sigil.

I nodded to him, "That's enough-" and leaned back with an expression of gratitude, parting us as my vitality was restored. "-Thank you, partner." I added. Yugi smiled brightly, his aura matching his expression and bobbed his head silently at my thanks. The title was an understatement as I was humbled by his kindness once more.

"Sure thing!" He seemed to say.

I could never repay his generosity, but I could make good use of it. With his strength to call my own I smirked at the Mark. It stood no chance against our powers united.

I flexed the fingers of the hand Yugi held. The spell was no longer able to deny me that. Finally I could return his reassuring grasp with my own. "Now, let us rid me of this blasted spell once and for all!" With that proclamation I tightened my hands around his and focused all my powers on the brand marring my flesh.

Needing no further elaboration Yugi copied me exactly, his gentle expression turning resolute and together with a synchrony I had deeply missed we channeled our Ba and our intent into the infernal spell. Our combined spirits rushed into the Mark – turning the tattoo from black to grey and grey to white and finally to a blistering gold before it exploded from my body in an upward burst of shimmering dust. What remained of it was stolen away on the wind and as abruptly as the Mark had been inflicted upon me, it was gone.

We stood up together in tandem, our movements a perfect mirror of one another, as though we still shared one body. There was only one unexpected difference. Yugi laughed silently, though I could well enough imagine the buoyancy of the sound, and pointed at the tops of our heads. Yugi had grown. He was as tall as me now. I smirked back at him good-naturedly. I suppose that was inevitable.

With my composure restored I turned my attention to our attacker.

"This is over. Surrender, Teleia." I commanded. "You cannot overcome our combined strength!"

"Pah!" Teleia spat back with ravenous conviction. I hadn't noticed her move back but she must have taken the advent of Yugi's appearance to begin her retreat. As she should. Gone was all of her previous purring and cooing. She contorted Isis's face into an expression of pure malice and teeth and stepped closer to Hieracosphinx. "It seems our time together must end for now, little Pharaoh." Realizing that this situation was now not in her favor showed more clarity of thought than I'd observed from her thus far, however if she believed I would allow her to make an escape then she was sorely mistaken.

"I think not!" I remarked. With the barest graze of my fingers against my Duel Disk, my deck rushed to my aid as I drew a winning card into my hand.

"Spellbinding Circle! Trap Sphinx Teleia where she stands!"

My spell wasted no time! The hexagram spun into being at Teleia's feet as she was imprisoned in place above the circle's central white rune. Both she and her monsters were thrown into silhouette by its harsh light. Together they were crushed to the ground as the four smaller circles poised within the master illuminated the area in striking orange tones - as though everything around us had been set ablaze. Sphinx Teleia writhed against the ground with her Wandering Mummys while Hieracosphinx attempted to escape into the air and was instead crushed back to the earth by the magic of the circle, its muscular limbs flexing for purchase and wings straining fruitlessly.

"Now, stay down." I taunted, feeling a smirk form on my lips at our downed foes. Isis would be back in control of her body soon enough - though I had another friend to free first.

Yugi silently beamed at me as I bid a second card answer me. This one was not mine to command but a fortunate addition to the deck I now shared with Kaiba. The Flute of Summoning Dragon was a staple of his strategies, as omnipresent as the dragons it spirited onto the field. It arrived in my hand larger and weightier than I would have expected. It was only with the gift of Yugi's strength that I was able to hold it at all. Yugi raised an eyebrow at me and pointed to the horn in wordless inquiry, recognizing the oddity of its presence in my deck.

"It's a long story." I chuckled, steadily lifting one end to my lips while aiming the other towards the Dragon Capture Jar. With a deep breath and a sizeable blow into the horn a rich peel of sound thundered from its depths. The Dragon Capture Jar trembled and violently shook from its base in response.

For a moment it seemed more inclined to fall over and shatter of its own accord than release its prisoner but a furious roar bellowed upwards from its depths to answer the Flute's song. Cracks in the Jar splintered across its rough surface like steadily growing spiderwebs as a white talon reared out of its mouth and Kaiba's draconic body shot out of the Jar.

Yugi startled and took a step back as an extremely irate dragon was deposited back onto the earth next to us.

**Kaiba**

"Therefore...-" it wheezed. If gravel could talk it would sound like this. It drew out the length of each word to an impossible extreme. My skin crawled waiting for the disembodied voice to spit its words out. I'd be half way to the grave by the time it finished the damn sentence. "You...are..." It emphasized 'are' with a tone I hated - like a teacher lecturing a kid they thought was slow. "a...dragon."

And so the conversation had gone in a perfect three hundred and sixty degree circle, metaphorically speaking. Mathematically there was no such thing as a perfect circle.

"No. I'm. Not." I snarled back at it.

Everything about the Dragon Capture Jar card was systematically designed to anger me. It was stubborn, its logic was flawed and it refused to even consider anything outside of whatever preset parameters the damn Jar was programmed to adhere to.

I paced the bottom of the ceramic pit trying to tighten the grounds of my argument.

It'd taken a minute for me to figure this ridiculous nonsense out after the jar had sealed me. I'd been drawn into it and discarded to the bottom of a massive clay trashcan like a piece of insignificant garbage. The exit was a tiny pin point of light so far above my head it might as well have been an orbiting satellite so either the jar was supersized or I was now minuscule. Which way around didn't matter, and after the Jar had started 'talking' at me I'd found there was a better target for my thoughts.

The dragon-headed relief leered at me with glowing eyes. Without moving its badly sculpted mouth its voice began echoing around its pathetic pottery prison again.

"Be...still...drakeling..." It repeated on a loop for the third time. It seemed capable of rudimentary logic and conversation but I was fairly sure I was dealing with some sort of artificial intelligence, and I would know; I'd built a more than a few. This one was was poorly implemented.

This was all extremely impossible, but despite that it was happening anyway. Whatever. Growling in irritation I began my logic loop again.

"Listen up, idiot. You're a jar that seals dragons and I'm not a dragon. So let me out!"

"Is... that...so..?" it ground out, repeating the same dialogue as the first time I'd tried this.

"Yes." I snapped. "I'm a human. I just look like a dragon. Deal with it."

It made a humming sound, like it was computing something.

"Do... humans... have... wings?"

The dialogue tree branched off from the previous path, but I could already tell this was going to be equally as annoying as the first round had been. Great.

"Do... humans...have...tails?"

Was it mocking me? "Shut up!" I roared at it in frustration.

"Do... humans... roar?" It questioned with insulting finality.

"No..." it decided. "And so... you... must... be... a... dragon."

With a second noise of raw fucking aggravation I slashed at the side of the Jar with my arm. A pulse of white hot energy shocked me back from the wall like an electric fence.

"Be...still...drakeling..."

"Ghn!"

This thing was useless! I'd have to make my own way out. I glared at the tiny spot of light that was the jar's opening. I might as well have been staring at the damn moon.

Climbing out wasn't an option, that was for sure. The distance was an issue, and then there was the fact that my arms and legs were all unfamiliar sizes. It was waking up from a six-month coma to find I'd grown another two inches all over again, except this time there were scales and extra limbs involved.

I tried shifting my wings but couldn't open one fully without the dislocation making it tremble. Functionally they weren't too far removed from a human hand. If I imagined splaying my fingers as wide as possible and flexing my wrist that seemed enough to get my wings to extend outwards and bend, until the pain of flexing out something that's not properly connected to the socket its meant to be plugged into jumped me again. The ligaments and tendons that controlled the movement of my left shoulder must have somehow been hooked up to my newly acquired left wing too - moving it made both limbs ache and the stabbing pain through muscle groupings I'd never had before made it feel even worse.

"Huhrnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!"

The peel of a horn sounded loudly in the jar's hollow gut, echoing around my head like a migraine.

"Ah..." The Jar hummed out like some geriatric geezer. "It seems... that your freedom... calls, drakeling."

Oh great, now what?

"Nh!" I snarled at the walls as suddenly the jar began to shrink all around me – the white opening speeding towards me. The landscape on the other side of the jar's mouth came into view like a Polaroid photo developing at record speed. Details of the edge of the forest and the red rocks of some yawning chasm rendered into full focus just as my arm was in range to reach out toward it. Arid wind rippled across my scales as that limb broke free into the outside world and within seconds the rest of my body followed it.

I felt grass brush against my stomach and torso before I realized I was back outside of the Jar. My legs ached as I shifted them into position underneath me and pushed up from the ground. This body was so heavy. Every movement took twice the effort it should of. I'd never thought of dragons as being anything other than fierce and deadly but right now I felt ungainly and lumbering.

I blinked as my eyes found the Pharaoh, trying to push back what I suspected was a second eyelid. Apparently I was seeing double now too. Just great.

**Atem**

In a magnificent flurry of silver-white claws and scales Kaiba reared up from the earth and beheld the new setting with a sharp sweep of his head. How much he had been privy to while sealed within the Jar was unknown to me but he noticed Yugi's spirit at my back near instantaneously and lashed his head toward him for a better look.

"Teleia's spell nearly became our undoing-" Yugi jumped backwards with I suspect a silent squeak as Kaiba prowled forward and inspected his authenticity with a demanding growl. "-Yugi is the one who saved us." I explained to Kaiba as the hero of the moment subtly attempted to dodge away from the snarling dragon maw now pointed at him. At the sound of Teleia's name Kaiba broke off his pursuit of Yugi to identify where our opponent now was and seemed to take her new position immobilized beneath the magic of my Spellbinding Circle in his stride. He hissed dismissively at her before aiming his deep gaze backward on the empty Dragon Capture Jar.

With a typical ferocity Kaiba snarled back at his jailer and angrily slammed his tail against it. In his single swipe the Jar was throw from the edge of the cliff to go sailing through the wind and into the canyon beneath. The faint echo of shattering pottery followed its descent. The action was as predictable as it was pointless, but I couldn't deny it amused me. The Dragon Capture Jar was a spell of my High Priest's creation. It was ironic it found itself the target of Kaiba's obvious contempt.

Kaiba snorted at the empty space the Jar had occupied but seconds ago menacingly as though to prove a point and then turned back to the two of us.

"Thank you, partner." I told Yugi once more, struggling not to chuckle at the skittish expression he wore as he moved away from Kaiba's overly-intimidating attempt to appraise him for defects or fallacies. He glanced to me and quirked his lips in a distracted smile and sharply dodged backwards as Kaiba sneered at him, revealing a row of dagger-like teeth. The draconic duelist glared at him through slitted eyes but then relented with a grunt and let Yugi step away.

"How did you come to be here?" I asked Yugi. Had I called out for his help? Perhaps, but that alone couldn't have been enough to draw him here.

Happy to put some distance between his head and Kaiba's own Yugi edged closer to me and mouthed something not in my mother tongue, but in Japanese; the language we had last conversed in. The one we had always used. The shapes his lips made had never felt so foreign to me before, nor been so difficult to understand. I narrowed my eyes and squinted at the softly blurred shapes, trying to guess the words as the realization that I no longer simply knew Yugi's meaning - was no longer privy to his thoughts or able to glean his intention with a beat of our shared heart – made me falter. A feeling of loss washed over me, softly scoring my heart as sea salt scores skin.

Yugi watched me attentively. In my moment of woeful clarity he simply smiled sympathetically and perhaps even a little ruefully. Kaiba growled too and turned to me, varying the tones of the feral noise as though loosely trying to mimic the sound of human speech. It seems he'd understood Yugi's muted lip movements, yet between his draconic noises and Yugi's phantasmal silence comprehension eluded me.

Yugi sensed my confusion.

After a pause and a thoughtful clasping of his chin Yugi enthusiastically raised one finger, apparently having a new idea. Using his thumbs and the first finger on each hand he created a square shape.

"Ah." The gesture as much easier to understand than the voiceless words had been. "You used the Cube." I translated. He nodded energetically then jumped again as suddenly Kaiba's attention turned hostile with an abrupt snarl. Now Kaiba sized him up again with narrowed eyes. I ignored the capricious dragon with some effort. Kaiba's abrupt fits of anger weren't abnormal, though were definitely more distracting when his teeth were the size of arrowheads.

"But why?" I asked, frowning a little as I did so. I didn't doubt Yugi's motivations, but why did he seek me now?

He pointed to his eyes, and then to me.

"To see me?" I suggested. It seemed as likely an interpretation as any. Kaiba rolled his eyes in a manner that was quite strange while in his current form. We would address that in a moment.

Yugi nodded vehemently and then stopped. He scratched his cheek thoughtfully and then instead hesitantly shook his head with uncertainty. He held his hand in mid air, fingers splayed and quickly tilted it from side to side. It was a most confusing display. For hope of any additional insight I glanced to Kaiba who glanced back and subtly bounced his wings in a makeshift shrug. He gritted his fangs afterward. His shoulder must still be a discomfort.

Fortunately Yugi was not easily demoralized. He flexed his hands into twin circles and placed them over his eyes. I recognized the action, though the technology would not be invented in my time for many many years. Binoculars. He mimed peering around the landscape with them.

"You're looking for something?" I guessed. I was more confident this time.

I paused as he gave my interpretation a thumbs up and then stilled. The thoughtful look came back onto his face and his eyebrows furrowed pensively. His face shifted from concentration to sheepishness and back again as he contemplated how to mime his intent.

Finally he sighed in reluctant resignation - then scowled darkly in a manner I had never seen him do before. With dramatic intent he planted his feet shoulder width apart and crossed his arms tightly over his chest, tilting back his shoulders and forward his hips into a set of unlikely yet familiar angles.

It was a rather exaggerated, but a good likeness. Kaiba's furious growl only made the display more comedic and I laughed in the face of the dragon as he roared at Yugi's impression.

"You're looking for Kaiba." I noted, completing the sentence. Yugi wilted from the pose in relief and deflated to stand more normally before sidling around me as Kaiba snapped his jaws at him.

"It was a convincing impression." I told Kaiba. He glowered and growled low in his throat at me in warning.

Ah. It was belated, but I understood Yugi's confusion.

"This is Kaiba." I explained, sweeping my hand over the winged ball of indignation that was currently glaring at us icily.

Yugi looked from me to Kaiba and then back again. He perked an eyebrow at me and then seemed to accept the situation in all its strangeness. His eyes went wide and he blushed as a drop of sweat rolled down the side of his forehead. He waved his hands in front of Kaiba in apology.

"Yet another long story-" I explained, watching as Yugi nervously scratched the back of his head and smiled apologetically at Kaiba. The dragon sneered at Yugi in reply and sharply turned his head away in a huff but did indeed stop growling nevertheless. It was a heartening response. I doubted one of my own apologies could have ever placated Kaiba so easily. Yugi was truly a most formidable friend.

"-And one Kaiba can tell you for himself." I added.

De-Fusion glittered into existence in my Duel Disk ready for my draw.

"Do not assume me defeated so easily." Sphinx Teleia snapped out from between grinning gritted teeth, drawing our attention to her.

She was no longer completely prone beneath the power of my Spellbinding Circle and had struggled enough to recover slightly. Her head was raised in a mad, determined smirk as she leered at us from her position on her hands and knees like a beast at bay. Her mouth grew ever wider as her eyes bulged slightly as her back and limbs shook with the strain it took to keep even her prostrated position from being crushed back against the floor by my spell.

"For calling another's Ba to aid you is one folly too many, my Pharaoh!"


	17. Chapter 17

**Yugi**

"Do not assume me defeated so easily." The thing in control of Isis's body announced.

Atem had called her Teleia, but she looked so much like Ishizu it was scary. Kaiba and I had ended up looking different to Atem and his High Priest because we were reincarnated in Japan, but as an Egyptian herself Ishizu was almost Isis's twin. It made me want to run over and help her as she struggled to sit up under Atem's Spellbinding Circle despite how bad that idea was.

"For calling another's Ba to aid you is one folly too many, my Pharaoh!" She panted, a creepy smirk crossing her face despite the position she was in. Her muscles tensed as she managed to pull herself upright; a crazy energy seemed to be fueling her as her lips cut into a menacing smirk. "His spirit energy will serve me now!" Teleia declared and trembled with effort as she steadily inched her hand toward her dark Duel Disk on her arm.

I heard Kaiba's low growl of warning as he narrowed his reptilian eyes.

She drew something black and gooey from the slick device and it dripped before solidifying into a Duel Monster's card. Atem promptly glanced down at his Duel Disk as Teleia's card was played onto the field in front of her. It wasn't like the model I'd used at the Duel Disk exhibition - the ones that just got released - instead it looked like Kaiba had made a custom one just for him. It fitted him like a glove, in fact it matched his look so well I hadn't even realized it was a Duel Disk at first. Mokuba was right. Spell or no spell, Kaiba had clearly been planning his trip to the afterlife for a long time.

"You cannot have forgotten that the afterlife is a dangerous place for living souls, little Pharaoh!" She shouted through eerie witch-like laughter as her new Soul Absorption spell card somehow activated despite no cards having been removed from play, but then again Kaiba was now a Blue-Eyes White Dragon so it looked like anything was possible. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what Soul Absorption was going to do under these circumstances.

Atem gritted his teeth and scowled at her words. "She is correct." He reluctantly conceded before turning to me just enough to keep Teleia fully in his vision. "Yugi, can you return to your world?" He questioned sharply.

Return? "I don't know..." I wasn't even sure how I got here - other than the fact that Atem had clearly needed me. I shook my head at Atem and he hummed thoughtfully. "Is that a bad thing?" I asked, though no sound came out of my mouth.

"A living soul will be venerable here without a vessel." He answered my question without even needing to hear it, just like he used to. It felt great to have little bit of that connection back.

Teleia cut the warm feeling off with another crazy laugh. Her mad eyes sliced over to me like they were magnetized to my face as the corners of her lips curled up into something that resembled a smile but really wasn't. "Venerable indeed-" Teleia struggled onto her knees and opened up her arms up wide in a hug that looked everything but welcoming. "-Now be consumed and restore my strength!" She commanded and I took a step back away from her. Soul Absorption pulsed and I was lifted off of my feet and into the air as though being pulled up by an invisible string.

"Uh, Atem?" He couldn't hear me, I knew that, but he shouted my name out as the gentle tug of the card turned into a massive yank and reeled me in until I fell forward into its pull.

"Come to me, little soul!" she smirked. I blushed as the spell sucked me toward her cleavage and turned to run. I got no traction while in the air and must have looked like a cartoon character as I scrambled on the spot.

"Yugi." Atem called out my name. He paused like he was deep in thought. "She's right." He told me, beginning to grin as I'd felt him do so many times before when drawing a winning card. "Let the spell do its work." He added, throwing Teleia a taunting smirk. That seemed like a really bad idea, but this was Atem we were talking about. His eyes locked onto mine, so certain and confident I didn't doubt him for a moment. I nodded back and stopped running on the spot.

I heard a disbelieving snarl from Kaiba somewhere behind me as I relaxed into Teleia's spell and let it drag me forward at an ever increasing speed. "Fu fu fu!" She cackled, her skewed dress, messy hair and tiny pupils making her look like she'd lost her mind. She licked her lips as I flew towards her, about to collide into her breasts as Atem's voice cut through the air.

"Now, Magical Cylinder; rebound Yugi's soul back toward me!" Atem shouted.

"No!" Teleia shrieked. The moment before I could smack into Teleia's chest one of the bright red tubes appeared in front me, my momentum throwing me into it as it magically funneled me from one cylinder to the second and shot me out of the other side back toward Atem like a carnival ride.

"My Magical Cylinders turns your Soul Absorption spell back on me-" Atem boasted, his fingers grasping at the Millennium Puzzle around his neck. "- or more specifically, my Millennium Puzzle!" He declared, naming it as his target. His eyes caught mine, holding my gaze meaningfully as I hurtled back toward the Puzzle, beginning to feel way too much like a ping-pong ball for comfort. Even though we weren't sharing my body anymore I recognized the silent question on his face; he was asking for my permission. I nodded encouragingly, understanding his logic. The Puzzle was made to store souls so it was the best place for me right now, especially if Teleia wanted to somehow use me against my friends. I wouldn't let that happen.

He blinked slowly in reply, "Just temporarily." He assured me, looking for some bit of hesitation from me but he didn't find any. I trusted him with my life, and my soul.

"I promise to return you after Teleia has been dealt with." He quietly added as I reached out to touch the Puzzle. It wasn't my first time as an astral projection or my first time going inside of the Puzzle, so I just went with it and allowed Soul Absorption to shepherd me into it without a fight. It was usually like falling down a long tunnel, drifting away from the light of the outside world and deeper into the dark depths. I was ready for it, but the shift in light never came.

"Soul Reversal!" Teleia shouted across the distance between her and Atem, her yell carrying on the wind.

"Wha-?" A stream of light shot out of me, arcing upwards back into the sky and then plummeting down towards Teleia to link us together. The floating slipstream pulled me back like a river rapid, the current carrying me away from Atem and the Puzzle. His eyes widened and his hand stretched out towards me as Teleia's spell caught me.

"Gnaaar." Kaiba snarled sharply from somewhere behind me as I was beamed back towards Teleia, the forest and plants all a blur as I sped through the air. His head was pointed towards Atem who glanced back at him. With a flick of his tail against the grass something gold went sailing through the air; Atem effortlessly reaching up to grab it as the object flew towards him. I hadn't realized how much I really missed having the Pharaoh's hand-eye coordination.

"Right!" Atem shouted back to Kaiba with a nod. Something that looked like a hand mirror spun in his hand before with a massive lunge forward he threw the object not at me, or at Teleia, but at the ribbon of light that was joining us. It spun through the air like a curveball, sailing passed me to collide with the light stream.

"Nyaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkk!" Something shrill screeched as the Mirror's surface collided with Soul Reversal in front of my face! The beam of light I was traveling down shot off in different directions as the Mirror cracked where the two spells met. "Bmuuuuuuuuuuuufffff!" Was that an explosion? I was ripped off into a different direction, rebounded between shards as the light stream bounced, careening back towards Atem and Kaiba as the Mirror's frame exploded in a backlash of pitch black flames that engulfed all three duelists. I saw Atem raise up his arm to shield his face as I hurtled passed him, the light dragging me forward abruptly hitting a wall of something white.

My eyes ached from how blinding the light was, and then suddenly it was all gone and everything was completely black.

"Whaaaaaa!" I tumbled forward, free-falling through a void with that same weird weightlessness that usually came with entering the Millennium Puzzle.

Tiny pin-pricks of light became obvious as my eyes adjusted. Stars. They were stars! If I squinted I could see galaxies and make out familiar constellations in the foreground, most of them I recognized from the sky above Domino on the rare days the city lights didn't drown them out. Behind them purple, pink and orange nebulas swirled together against the black background. This wasn't normal. The Puzzle had always had a bunch of rooms with strange things in them but never a hole into outer space.

"Hey, Atem?" I called out. If something was up with the Puzzle then Atem needed to know about it, fast, but I wasn't sure if he'd be able to hear me now that his focus was back on Teleia. He didn't reply as I floated through the cosmos for another ten seconds and then smacked into something I couldn't see with a hollow thump, like a goldfish bumping into the edge of its fishbowl.

"Uhhhhh." I peeled my cheek back from the barrier it was smushed up against and sat up. The darkness of space still stretched on in every direction but now my own reflection stared back at me like a mirror. What was this? Glass? I reached out to touch the barrier. It was solid and cool against my fingers, they even smudged it a bit as I pulled away. Was this a cinema theatre, or a very large computer screen? What as going on?

"Yugi?" A familiar voice greeted me mildly from somewhere above my head.

From the bottom of this glass bubble I glanced upwards to see Atem's unmistakable silhouette perched upon a platform suspended above me.

"Atem?" The room was so bright it back-lit him, casting his body into silhouette as he leaned down towards me. I guess he'd heard me after all but how could he be fighting Teleia and be in here at the same time, wherever 'here' was? He offered a hand and with a burst of strength he pulled me up onto the platform with him. As I found my feet and looked back at him under the light I realized I was wrong, in a way.

I stared into my own face, or his version of my face. It was Atem, the way he'd been as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle.

"Yami?" It felt good to say that name again out loud.

He smirked amicably "In a manner of speaking." His skin and eye colors were the same as mine, just like they'd been when he'd been in control of my body. They looked over me warmly despite my slip up. "I'm sorry to disappoint you." He teased with a soft amusement.

"Sorry! I thought -" I cut myself off. I didn't really know what I'd thought. "It doesn't matter." I finished with a smile and pulled him into a hug. "Why do you look this way?" I questioned, perking an eyebrow as I did. He wore clothing I didn't recognize but sure looked like something that would have come out of our shared dueling wardrobe. The only problem was I didn't own any of it. "Not that it isn't great to see you like this again." I quickly added for good measure.

He folded his arms around my shoulders to return the gesture and chuckled. "It's good to see you too." Yami gently pulled out of my hug, resting his hands on my upper arms as he blinked and looked away, lost in thought for a moment. "As for why I appear this way..." He trailed off as his eyes swept around the room we were in as if looking for the answer, so mine did the same.

It looked like we were in a laboratory… in space. It was bathed in cyan light like the set of a big budget sci-fi movie and, "Wait, is that -" My eyes landed on the Millennium Puzzle, slowly being slotted together by a robotic limb in a giant test tube at the end of the walkway. That wasn't right. Atem had taken the Millennium Puzzle back to the afterlife with him and I'd just seen it around his neck as he battled Teleia. "Just where are we?" I asked Yami and tried to keep the cautious suspicion from my voice.

He turned back to me with a serious look on his face. "We're in Kaiba's Soul Room."

That's where we were? I glanced around the lab again, the clinical and spartan surroundings suddenly seeming a lot more revealing than they really were.

"Though the facility it takes the form of is part of the KaibaCorp space station." Yami added, the blue light of the room making his skin appear alien and ghostly. Space station? "Oh yeah, that was all over the news a few months back." I could see it now; the hallmarks of Kaiba's design preferences were everywhere. Clean lines and harsh angles and everything bathed in unnatural light. Even by the standards of current technology it was overly futuristic. How was it that Kaiba could be the reincarnation of someone born thousands of years in the past and also seem like he'd been born too soon in the present?

"I exist here as a holographic dueling simulation of the Pharaoh." He continued and then paused, the pensive gaze never leaving his face.

"A hologram?" I was speaking to a hologram? But he was so convincing. "But you seem so real?" Was he a version of Yami that Kaiba had created? Just the scope of it was mind-boggling, for Kaiba to have remade him with such pin-point precision.

"I know", Yami replied smoothly. "Kaiba has spent a lot of time perfecting me." He commented neutrally but there was a hint of pride underneath the surface of his words. "Although he only upgraded me to his Solid Vision technology after the true version of me achieved his destiny." He explained as his toned faded to a more natural one.

That made me frown. "Are you okay with being a hologram?" I questioned, slowly.

Yami hummed to himself and stared out of the window at the stars. "To be a hologram projected by Kaiba's computers isn't much different to being a spirit bound to the Millennium Puzzle." He noted mildly and I frowned at his tone. It sounded so distant. He turned back to me with a small smile. "Though I've missed you, partner."

"Yeah." I agreed with a wholehearted nod. "I've miss you too, so much."

We smiled at each other before Yami's expression fell slightly to look contemplative again, as if he was debating asking something. Even though I now knew he was a hologram he somehow still effortlessly projected the real Yami's pensive aura; the same one I'd sensed every night as he stayed up perched on my bed brooding over his past, or future, or the many duels in between. It was nostalgic and comforting. I let this Yami work through his thoughts as he figured out what it was he wanted to know, just like I used to do with the real one.

"What's 'Atem' like?" Yami eventually asked, his purple eyes watching me with an intensity that felt faintly probing.

Oh.

"He's-" I paused and frowned, not really knowing how to answer. Memories made up who a person was and I hadn't had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Atem again since he regained them. I couldn't really say that though, not while Yami watched me closely, waiting patiently for my opinion. I had to try my best to answer his question properly. How to describe Atem from what I'd seen? He was 'different', but still confident and kind – or that was the impression I got anyway. "-nice." Was the word that emerged from my mouth, lamely.

Yami watched me blankly for a long moment and then smirked, leaning back a little to push out his hips and relaxed into our dueling pose – a pose I missed.

"Good. I'm glad." He concluded, his stare becoming sphinx-like and utterly unreadable. "Now how is it that you came to her-" Yami cut off his own sentence abruptly and stood very still, tilting his head slightly like he was looking at something behind my back.

"What's wrong?" I turned slightly but couldn't spot anything, not immediately anyway.

"I don't know." He replied in a hushed tone. With a flourish of his jacket he turned and walked away down the platform and into the bowels of the room, frowning as he approached one of the doors that lead out of this massive observation deck and knelt down right beside it. I followed him, glancing over his shoulder as he peered at whatever it was that had distracted him. That wasn't usually easy to do.

A pool of something slick and black was leaking out from underneath the door and slowly creeping across the floor. "Is that oil?" It looked a bit like it, though it didn't have the iridescent shine to it that oil usually did.

"I don't think so." Yami replied, reaching toward it with two outstretched fingers. He was almost close enough to touch it before it reacted, erupting upwards to make a bubbling tendril that launched itself towards Yami and wrapped itself around his fingers. "What the-!" He struggled against it.

"Hang on!" I shouted as I rushed to his side. The slimy tentacle quickly let him go as I approached and recoiled back as if it was afraid of me for some reason. One glance at Yami's concerned expression told me he was just as confused as I was as the oil slick shrank away back under the door and disappeared.

"I don't know what that was-" Yami began, eyeing the door warily "-But we can't let it escape."

Our faces must have matched as a determined expression crossed them. My eyes followed his as they trailed toward the door release button to open it. With a sharp nod to silently tell me to prepare myself for whatever was on the other side he jammed his thumb against the button and the door hissed open.

Beyond the doorway was a long corridor.

Futuristic cyan lights spanned it, illuminating the walkway and ceiling as best they could but something thick had settled over each of the bulbs to blot out most of the light. The leftover ambient lighting was just bright enough that I could make out a series of mismatched doors and a gross black sludge that coated the floor, creeping forward from the dark depths of the corridor towards all the doors it could reach. It was tacky and dribbled up their wooden surfaces towards their keyholes and hinges before the doors themselves seemed to hum and repell the encroaching substance with a pulse of energy.

"Bzzzt." It kinda sounded like a moth flying into a lamp as the sludge was repelled and splattered back down onto the floor, but it didn't stay down for long. In only a few seconds it began to churn and reform into a brand new branch that started to sneak back up one of the doors again.

Soul Rooms were weird places. They were a bit like dreams; they had their own internal logic that wasn't always easy to figure out but this black goo definitely wasn't meant to be here. I was sure of it.

"Something's not right." I concluded, seeing Yami's head nod in agreement in my peripheral vision. He didn't say anything, but the stony face he pulled told me without words just how troubled he was by the presence of all this gunk. "What is all this stuff?" I asked, taking a step into the hallway for a better look. And where had it come from? It was everywhere, slowly oozing along the floor and walls towards the doors and dripping occasionally from the ceiling lights to splatter into puddles on the floor. I cringed at the smell and held my sleeve over my nose as I side-stepped around one. It smelled like spoiled meat. And really really spoiled at that. It looked a lot the mud that Anubis had made back in the KaibaCorp Duel Dome before transforming into a ten story tall jackal monster.

"Anubis's evil magic." Yami noted, anger heating his voice as he gritted his teeth. "Though how it survived my counterpart's Soul Release spell I don't know." He added, placing his hand on his hip as he glared at the substance.

I wasn't sure exactly what Yami was referring to but I didn't doubt him for a second.

"And it's spreading." He observed as he paused at the threshold to the main deck, watching the magical goop very slowly slither across the floor back toward a partially open doorway.

Most of the doors were closed but some were slightly open and badly damaged. Two looked like the doors had almost been ripped off of their hinges, and a third a little further into the hallway looked like something had clawed it apart from the inside.

"These doors should all be closed." Yami announced from my side, grimacing at one of the ones closest to us that was just very slightly ajar and spilling a cold odorless chill into the hallway. "Anubis must have disturbed whatever was inside of them to fuel his powers when he emerged in Kaiba's body."

"That's not good." I noted, glancing down at my feet as a gooey tentacle circumvented me completely as it passed me by en route for the open door, for some reason giving me a wide berth even though it had tried to attack Yami a few seconds ago.

"No, it isn't." Yami agreed tonelessly. "Yugi." I glanced back at him as he called my name but he was completely fixated on the black muck. "We must deal with this." He told me with finality, tracking it as it steadily inching towards the open door's threshold like it was being drawn there.

"Right" I agreed, standing still and raising my hand to my chin and leaving it there. "It doesn't seem to be able to get into the closed doors." I reasoned out, watching Yami's grim expression become curious as he perked an eyebrow at me. "I think we need to seal the broken doors up, so they're like the others." I observed. A hoarse, barking cough was muffled by the wood as I pointed toward the slightly open door next to us to illustrate. The black goo was already sliding across the wall towards its hinges and the seams of the door knob.

"It's a good plan." Yami agreed, his curious expression becoming a fond smile until it abruptly shifted to look alarmed as his eyes cut to something behind me.

"-What's wro-" My words died mid sentence as something slick and heavy slopped onto my shoulder from the ceiling! "Eeeeeeeeew!" My whole body went rigid as I mechanically cranked my head to the side to stare blankly at a massive lump of black mud had dripped onto me.

"Yugi!" Yami called out, his eyes going wide with an alarm that made my heart go crazy in my chest.

The sludge blistered, bubbled and then split apart to skitter across my jacket and towards my face like a flock of big black slugs. "Eee!" I thrashed trying to pull my arms out of my coat, feeling panic set in as one of the slimes crawled to my collar bone and launched itself at my lips.

"Ah!" I crossed my wrists over my mouth to block it, instinctively squeezing my eyes closed against the assault, but the impact of something wet and sloppy never came. Instead a warmth radiated outwards from my jacket's breast pocket and the colour behind the back of my eyelids flared like a spotlight had been shined on them. "Huh?" I cracked an eye open slowly, squinting against a hot blaze of light. The ooze was repelled in a flash that arched outwards from my pocket. It was blasted away from my body and splattered onto the walls and floor, melting into all the deep shadows cast by the corridor's ambient lighting until I couldn't make out any difference between the hallway itself and the ooze.

"Is that a card?" Yami looked wary and intrigued as I followed his eyeline down to the gleaming silhouette of a card shining so brightly that its shape was obvious even through my clothing. I could feel my expression go blank in surprise as I reached into my pocket and pulled it out, the blinding burst of light dimming until the edge of the paper stock just faintly glowed.

"Sort of." I replied, staring down at the simply drawn dragon in surprise as the card warmed my fingers. "It's a Blue-Eyes card that Mokuba made for Kaiba." Mokuba hadn't seemed to want to take it so and hearing him call it 'trash' had worried me, so I'd pocketed it for safe-keeping before handling the cube.

One of Yami's eyebrows perked upwards thoughtfully. "I see." He turned to the ajar door to his side, studying it with a focused expression. "Perhaps it can restore these room's seals." It looked a lot like he wanted to walk over and try the card out but something was holding him back. I could tell as his mouth slightly pinched downwards into a frustrated frown that he was hesitant, but it wasn't something anyone else would have picked up on. It was all in the way he shifted his weight and stared at nothing, focusing his eyes on a single point while listening intently. How had Kaiba known to program him to do that? Yami had never shown anything less than total confidence when they dueled – I got the impression he'd always been determined not to show any kind of weakness off to Kaiba. They had some kind of mutual understanding, but one that had to be very carefully maintained by never losing face. I guess as part of that in the past when something was up with Kaiba Yami was always the first person to lead the charge in his defense, but something was holding him back this time.

"You can't leave the main room?" I guessed, watching him linger in the doorway of the observation deck.

"As a hologram projected by the technology in this room I can't wander any further." He admitted, obviously irritated by the limitation. "But no matter what this magic must be dealt with, before Anubis's invasion goes any further." He blinked slowly and turned his eyes on me, the furrow in his brow and downturn of his mouth making him look deeply unhappy. "I'm sorry to ask this of you Yugi..." He began, taking a deep breath like he was about to ask something he really didn't want to.

I waved him off before he could finish.

"Don't worry. I'll handle it." I assured him warmly. Yami watched wordlessly as I stepped further into the corridor toward the coughing door as the hacking sounded again, louder this time, and scratchy like it was coming out of a sore throat. "Besides, I want to help Kaiba too." I added over my shoulder.

Yami searched my face like he was assessing me but there wasn't any doubt in his eyes as he inclined his head to me. "Thank you, partner." He nodded gratefully with an expression of utmost confidence before side-eyeing a nearby door. "But know whatever lurks behind these doors could be very dangerous."

"Yeah I kinda figured." I rubbed the back of my head as I nervously chuckled. "This _is_ Kaiba's Soul Room after all."

"Dangerous for reasons beyond Kaiba's various personality defects." Yami added with a muted smirk. His low mood seemed boosted by my confidence. It was weird how much the tables had turned over the years. "Evil magic is draw towards dark emotions." He added, tinging his voice with caution.

Dark emotions? "Like anger, and hate?" I questioned. We both knew Kaiba had a problem with those sort of emotions. In fact the whole world pretty much knew Kaiba has issues with them, you only needed to watch a recording of any one of his duels to see that.

Yami nodded to me, looking intense and focused. "The very same." He confirmed. "Others too. Regret, shame, fear and desperation, even grief if left to fester." He looked more and more serious as he listed them off and held my gaze with his own for a long meaningful second. "Be careful."

"I will." I nodded back with determination, meaning every word. "Don't worry. I've got Mokuba's Blue-Eyes to protect me." I added, keeping the card in my hand in case I needed it.

Yami seemed to relax a bit at that assurance and with a plan in place began dodging over puddles and between drips to get to the first of the unsealed doors. There was a breeze rattling through its keyhole that was chilly and made me shiver as the cough sounded again. It was wet and hacking. It sounded really bad. The ooze that had been climbing towards the door knob retreated back on itself as I reached towards it. The handle itself feel a little loose in my palm as I gently turned it just enough to cautiously poke my head through the door frame. If this was Kaiba's Soul Room I could be one creaky door away from being eaten by a dragon.

Oh.

It wasn't that bad.

The room was easily identifiable as a dormitory, or something close. The rows of thin metal bed frames made it obvious. Even though it was clearly the middle of the night in this room the moonlight through the windows was bright enough to see by. It looked like it was winter; snow was piling up outside and when I exhaled I could see my own breath. Most of the beds were occupied by a kid, deep asleep under a plain moss-colored comforter, but it was the bed at the end with two familiar faces that drew my attention.

It was the Kaiba brothers, but they were children. This was some sort of old memory then? I'd been expecting something much worse after Yami's warning. With a light push the door fully opened with a long creak of its rusty hinges and I stepped inside.

Like all the other boys in the room Mokuba was still deep asleep, but huddled up in a mountain blankets. He looked smaller and paler than I'd ever seen him before and choked out another rough chesty cough as I spotted him, but didn't stir or wake up from it. The same couldn't be said for his big brother.

Kaiba was awake – very visibly awake – lying next to his brother on the bed above the covers like a child-sized guard dog in a set of flannel pajamas that looked a little too short at the wrists and ankles. He watched Mokuba as his coughing fit passed. His big blue eyes almost shone in the moonlit room and they were filled with something Kaiba had long since learn to hide from his expression – worry. He curled up a little tighter and shivered, his eyes never wavering from Mokuba's face even for a second, like he expected him to vanish into dust if he looked away.

The chill in the room was bad and the second set of sheets cocooning Mokuba like a human burrito quickly explained why the bed next to him seemed to have been stripped bare of bedding all the way down to the mattress.

With a cough so substantial it made Mokuba's body convulse a little he opened his eyes slowly and groggily, either used to it or too exhausted to react to his brother looming over him on his bed watching him sleep.

"Seto?" Mokuba croaked, barely audible.

Kaiba nodded at him, a small smile that looked like it was intended to be reassuring but fell short of being at all believable flickered across Kaiba's much rounder face.

"It's okay Mokie-" he replied, smoothing down a crease in the comforter and handing Mokuba a glass of water from a nearby night table. "-Drink this and then try to get back to sleep."

Mokuba bobbed his head sleepily, only half-awake at best. His little fingers sluggishly reached out to take the glass from his brother, Kaiba himself not letting go of the glass until he was sure his brother had a good hold of it. He slowly sipped it down, spilling a little as a cough ambushed him while drinking.

"That's great." Kaiba praised, taking the glass back from Mokuba once it was empty and replacing it on the bedside table. "Now go back to sleep." He quietly encouraged, his childish voice not only higher but also much softer in tone than the teenage Kaiba we'd come to know so well.

Mokuba burrowed back down into the hive of blankets and pillows. After a moment his breath evened out into sleep, though it was still raspy. Kaiba's false grin faded back into an expression of concern. He sighed, deeply, silently and then my worry shot up to match his as he covered his hands over his mouth to stifle a cough of his own, his shoulders jumping as he silently convulsed.

Watching them made me anxious. This was a memory and there wasn't anything I could do, plus the Kaiba brothers clearly recovered from their respective illnesses. I didn't need to feel concerned but I still did. I really liked kids. I loved helping them pick out new toys and find cool new games in Grandpa's shop, it was the best part of the job. It was hard to watch them struggle and the brothers were both so small here.

Kaiba shivered a little and glanced towards the door I'd come from. There was an old radiator secured to the wall, inactive and from the look of it half-dismantled. That explained why it was so cold in here.

"It's you." Kaiba's young voice traveled the distance across the room without waking up a single other sleeping boy. Who was he talking to? I turned back to him and got caught in what would grow up to be his stare of assessment, though through a kid's eyes their shone an obvious anxiety and hope badly hidden behind fake indifference.

I looked left and then right. There was no one else here, so he must be talking to me. "You know me?" I questioned as pointed to myself. That seemed weird. Though this was a memory it was also a room in Kaiba's Soul Room – it looked like he was able to see me here, even if that deviated from the original memory.

"'Course I do. What da'you want?" Kaiba questioned, smartly. His tone was defensive and he clambered off the bed to stand in front of Mokuba as he slept, hiding him from sight. As he stood up he straightened his spine and crossed his arms to make himself appear as big as possible… but he was still just a little kid. It was like he somehow already knew he'd grow up to be tall and had started prepping his mannerisms in advance. I tried not to smile at just how unintimidating he was right now. At the moment he was about the same height as Mokuba had been in Duelist Kingdom – maybe a similar age too. He looked kinda cute, really. With puberty separating them the Kaiba brothers could hardly look more different, but the resemblance between Kaiba at this age and Mokuba as I remembered him back then was way more obvious.

His eyes slowly narrowed at me as I guess I forgot to reply. "You better get out-" he warned "Or I'm gonna call the orderly." Despite the softly hissed threat instead of holding his ground and glaring at me, this younger Kaiba padded across the floor toward me, eyeing me closely with a bright curiosity. He circled me like a shark before pausing right in front of me a staring upward into my eyes with a badly hidden interest. "And what's up with your hair?" he demanded.

I had no idea what to say to that. With Kaiba it wasn't really an option to back down. I couldn't see that changing no matter what age he was. Confrontation wasn't something I enjoyed but I was the picture of confidence as I channeled Atem's weird ability to cut Kaiba back down to size. "What's up with yours?" I parried keeping a friendly tone of light challenge in my voice that I knew was sure to keep him interested.

"My hair's normal. Yours looks weird." He informed me matter-of-factly. He crossed his arms in a way that was all too familiar and then cocked his head to one side in a manner that wasn't. "You some kinda punk?" he taunted with a little smirk. It vanished as he was abruptly jumped by a coughing fit of his own, his skinny body shaking as he tried to muffle the noise with his hands.

"Woah there, are you okay? I reached out a hand to steady him as the coughing fit passed, the little Kaiba looking much paler and suddenly so very tired. Little tears pricked at the corner of his eyes and he blinked them away.

"You should go back to bed." I told him as I patted his shoulder.

Kaiba glared at me defiantly. "I need to watch over Mokie." He told me, breaking eye contact to look over his brother. "I promised." He added as his eyes softened to become hesitant instead of hardening to become coolly defiant.

"But you can't do that if you get sick too." I reasoned, nodding to show I understood.

"But what if he gets even worse while I'm asleep!" Kaiba suddenly snapped in a flare of outright anger. "What if he chokes? Or he coughs himself to death?" His words sped up as they tumbled out of his mouth and he swallowed thickly, staring back down at Mokuba once more possessive and a little desperately. "What then, huh?"" his eyes landed back on me and his prickly words failed to hide the masked plea for reassurance, for an answer that would some make everything better.

"I can watch him for you." I told him. Kaiba looked at me like I'd grown a second head. "-If you'll allow me to, of course." I quickly added.

Kaiba's arms crossed a little tighter as he considered my offer, usually it looked standoffish, but at this age it looked like he was hugging himself. Tightly.

"Why would you do that?" He asked quietly, his large blue eyes peering up at me hesitantly from under his heavy bangs.

"Because we're friends." That answer came naturally without a second thought. We were friends - we really were. It was time for me to live up to that. I smiled at Kaiba's young face, hoping he'd pick up on the honesty of those words – the genuine belief that lay behind them.

"No we aren't" He argued back.

"Yes we are." I replied, trying not to lose my friendly smile while I bead of sweat ran down the side of my face from how bolshie he already was.

"Just saying something doesn't make it true." He insisted and stuck out his tongue at me.

"Well, you're right about that." I agreed, not quite sure what to do. I'd seen the Kaiba brothers as kids before in Noa Kaiba's virtual world, but talking to them was really different from just watching memories and it looked like even at this age Kaiba already had a stubborn streak. Atem would have known what to say to prove that I really meant it. Oh, that was it. "Let me do this for you and it'll prove that we're friends." I reasoned. He watched me for a long moment, eyes darting around for a trace of a lie in my expression.

"Whatever." He settled upon with heavily feigned reluctance. I nodded, grinning at how much more reasonable Kaiba seemed to be as a kid than as a teenager.

He trotted back to Mokuba's bed and peeled back the comforters. Looks like sharing a bed was something the brothers did routinely. Mokuba instinctively shifted over a little to make space as Kaiba nudged at him, the older brother curling up a little around Mokuba's as he unconsciously nuzzled against him. Even though they looked pretty settled Kaiba's alert blue eyes didn't waver from me so I sat down at the end of the bed where he could keep an eye on me without hurting his neck. I sat still and watched the snow fall through the window as even Kaiba eventually closed his eyes when I did nothing else interesting. Even Mokuba coughing in his ear and sniffling barely provoking a response as he dozed on the cusp of consciousness.

"Y'cn go now." He muttered into his pillow, barely awake from the sound of it. "N'shut the door behind you." He slurred. This wasn't really Kaiba and the card in my hand wasn't really a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, but it responded to the memory's command like they were one and the same as the hand-made card began to warm again, just like it had before activating back in the hallway.

"Okay. I'll try." I nodded, to both the card and the little Kaiba, and then felt silly because there was no way he could see that with his eyes closed. Quietly I padded back to the door, holding out Mokuba's Blue-Eyes to the wooden surface. I didn't know what I had been expecting to happen but I trusted in the card and what it represented; the Kaiba brother's bond to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, and to each other. With a soft pulse of light from the card's depths all the damage done to the door started to undo itself and be erased. The slightly skewed angle the door was leaning to righted itself as the hinges re-secured themselves to the door frame and the door knob tightened up to anchor itself firmly in place like it was brand new. Some exposed patches of door's wood that had started to splinter where the paint had peeled off healed up like it had never been damaged at all and finally a line of shining light traced around the door's outer edge. It started from the bottom, eventually completing it's circuit at the top and as it did the shimmering energy that had guarded the other doors against Anubis's sludge flickered into place.

"Thanks Blue-Eyes" I gratefully told the card, the bloom of light from it dimming as its job was completed. I carefully stashed it back in my pocket as I reached for the door's newly fixed handle and made my way back into the corridor, gently pulling the door closed behind me. I almost didn't hear it as a last softly spoken vow fell tiredly from the little Kaiba's lips.

"M'gonna get us outta here. I just gotta."

At that the door sealed shut.


	18. Chapter 18

**Kaiba**

Atem took care of Teleia's Soul Absorption and Soul Reversal plays with his typical pomp and flare. It was amusing to watch just how effortlessly he foiled every strategy set against him when they weren't mine.

Ultimately Sphinx Teleia's whole play was one big anticlimax; completely pathetic despite the impressive death wish her eyes had been beaming onto us as Atem whisked Yugi away. Hell, his precious 'host', or 'partner', or whatever cloying term he and Yugi used for each other hadn't even blinked as Atem corralled him into the Puzzle like an overly trusting little idiot. I'd die before I willingly climbed into that oversized USB stick. Now the Puzzle just swung around the Pharaoh's neck as Shadow-Revealing Mirror's explosion cleared. His long dark fingers reached up to steady it as he closed his eyes serenely and cradled the Puzzle in his hand. He muttered some useless thanks to it and then let go. It swung free around his neck as he opened his eyes back up and smirked passed me, straight to Teleia, mocking her with his smuggest expression.

"A good try, Teleia." Atem pronounced with that arrogant amusement he should trademark. "But you're out of tricks." the Pharaoh observed as his fingers flickered to his Duel Disk, drawing a card. He effortlessly twirled his Soul Taker spell card in-between his fingers for dramatic effect, twisting it in his digits to reveal it to Teleia and me like a showboating amateur magician at a birthday party. "Fortunately, _I_ have one to exorcise your vile presence once and for all." He proclaimed.

Tch. Spare me. I didn't know what he and Yugi been doing before I got out of the Jar but Atem now looked amped up. His eyes flashed like sirens and all the cuts, bruises and crumpled clothing fell away as insignificant in that signature stance of his that practically oozed confidence. How just Yugi's presence alone could have that effect I had no idea but apparently Atem was now determined to put on a show just for him - and he wasn't even here to see it anymore.

Whatever. I snorted and turned my focus back to our opponent.

"No! No! No!" Teleia screamed, slapping her hands against the invisible barrier made by Spellbinding Circle like a toddler throwing a tantrum until she wore herself out and had to quit.

Atem totally ignored the moronic display and approached her at a saunter, like he didn't have a care in the world.

"Are you ready to be removed from my world?" He taunted in a tone of voice that was rich and dark, like auditory coffee. I huffed. I'd always known the Pharaoh had a sadistic streak; I'd been on the business end of it enough times. He liked to flaunt his wins and kick his opponents when they were down just a little bit more than could typically be considered 'sporting'. Interesting that his vacation in fantasyland and 'new' memories hadn't eliminated that dark little blip. That was fine by me. It might actually be fun to watch now that he was aiming his sadism at someone else.

Now that Sphinx Teleia was hunched over in the dirt on her hands and knees like a rabid animal she was finally remotely interesting to watch. Seeing her being forced to grovel like that was appealing on its own, but it was her eyes that finally made her worth my time. They'd denatured into something darker. Something fiercer. Something I recognized. I'd seen them in the mirror every morning I'd woken up under Gozaburo's heel. I'd seen them on the faces of people who thought they stood a chance against me only to feel the gravity of that ridiculous assumption as I crushed them beneath my boot. They were the eyes of someone who knew they were beat and had nothing left to throw at their enemy except every last iota of their hatred. They locked onto the Pharaoh, sizing him up as her scowl got even darker, looking for something that would take us down with her. Then she smirked like she'd found it.

"Gurrrrrn." _"Watch out."_ I growled out a warning to Atem. His eyes flicked over to me curiously before narrowing and turning back on Teleia.

"We'll see you returned to normal in a moment, Kaiba." He announced dismissively with that supreme surety that never failed to grate on my nerves and completely ignored the irritated snarl I threw his way next.

" _That's not what I'm saying, you_ _dolt_ _."_ Of all the moments to drop his irritating ability to figure me out this was the worst one he could have damn well picked. " _She's up to something."_

"Just wait a minute longer." He concluded, not getting the message at all.

"Binding the outcome of this Shadow Game to your cards and flashing trinkets was indeed cunning." Sphinx Teleia cooed as her evil grin turned into a coy pursing of lips. The badly feigned calmness of her voice completely contradicted her murderous eyes as they brightened like she'd had an epiphany. "But few strengths are without weakness." she boasted. The struggle she continued to put up against Spell Binding Circle was entertaining to watch as she slowly wrenched her hand towards her Duel Disk. It bled black tar into her hand which transformed into a card. Slowly she inched her hand over the device to put it into play. I snarled at that, feeling my scales raise in alert as Atem stood there and waited with a triumphant grin, apparently content to just watch the damn festivities.

"Heed me, Pyramid Turtle." Sphinx Teleia called across the space between us. The gross lurching gurgle of someone trying to force themselves to regurgitate something from the bottom of their gut made my skin crawl as her black slop nosily retched up her new monster.

"Fwssssssssssssssssssssst!" hissed her new zombie as it was spat out of the pool of thick black goo. It slowly lumbered across the ground with thick grey limbs, a ridiculous headdress and an enormous pyramid for a shell weighing down its back. I'd always thought the card's nonsensical design was something Pegasus had dreamed up after one spritzer too many but this dimension's version of reality seemed out to prove it was even stupider than the one I'd left behind.

It clearly wasn't going anywhere quickly and with only twelve hundred attack points it wasn't worth worrying about. I wouldn't have bothered with it if it wasn't for the way Sphinx Teleia's eyes kept gleaming like she was setting a master plan into action. What the hell was she planning to do with the damn thing? Make turtle soup? I grunted since that was the closest Blue-Eyes could get to scoffing as its beak split open with an audible clacking noise.

Were my new eyes not tuned to movement so precisely I would have missed what happened next. It would have been too quick. My vision sharpened at the motion as the Turtle's unexpectedly frog-like tongue shot out of its throat and cut through the air. I tried to snap at it as it launched towards Atem and must have missed. This body was making it hard to react with anything like my usual accuracy.

_"Dodge it!"_ I barked back at him. What a waste of my breath that was.

Atem wasn't phased by any part of this situation. His eyes narrowed in focus as he reached forward and actually caught the fucking thing out of the air; pinching it hard in his hand and then yanking back on it as it thrashed in his hand. Dexterous bastard.

Pyramid Turtle hissed loudly as it lost its tongue in the Pharaoh's grip. The muscle tone in Atem's body raised to the surface of his skin as he braced against the monster with all of his strength. Despite its size and potential body weight it only managed to drag him forward an inch until he tightened up his footing and planted himself in the ground like a stunted mutant palm tree.

"Give up, Teleia. This is over." Atem lectured, his tone somewhere straddling the line between unimpressed and amused. Clearly he thought he had this all in hand – figuratively and literally. He didn't. It wasn't the stupid Turtle that he needed to watch out for. I looked passed the dead-eyed monster to its rabid bitch of a mistress. She was now mirroring Atem's victorious grin with one of her own.

"You are strong, my Pharaoh." Sphinx Teleia purred. "But your strength is only borrowed and shall be quick to fade."

Here it came. Whatever she was going to try – this was it.

Sphinx Teleia licked her lips as a trickle of her own sweat slipped over them and steadily inched her hand back towards her fake Duel Disk to pull a sticky black card free from its depths. It morphed and split down the middle from being one card into two. She set one face down and the other oozing object into play.

"I equip the spell Violet Crystal to my Pyramid Turtle." she declared before being crushed back to the floor by the pressure of Spell Binding Circle. Despite being face-down in the dirt she smirked, turning her head to the side to watch whatever she'd set play out. Leaving her back exposed to two enemies while she relaxed on the ground like an ugly rug was moronic. Either she didn't have any energy left to fight the Circle with, or she was sure her new cards would do the job. Or both.

Pyramid Turtle spat out a sound of displeasure as the card took effect on it. Its thick skin parted with spurts of blood and puss as spires of large purple crystal forced their way out of it's skin, lining it's limbs, neck and head like the spines of a genetically defective porcupine.

My eyes narrowed as I tried to figure out what her possible combo might be. Violet Crystal raised both the attack and defense of a Zombie monster by three hundred points, but even with the boost Pyramid Turtle was still weak. She'd have been better off using that on Hieracosphinx since that was her most powerful monster. What was she plotting? I glared at her, watching closely for something that would give her plan away.

Her eyes darted to the end of her monster's slimy tongue as sharp pink crystals erupted from it like barbs. The crystals pricked Atem's dark skin to draw tiny drops of bright blood to the surface of his forearm as it slowly inched down to his wrist. He paid it zero attention as the appendage coiled around his arm, far too busy playing tug of war with the rest of the Turtle's tongue to notice as its end tightened like a boa constrictor.

"Ghrrrrn!" _"_ _Damn it!_ _"_ I snapped, clenching my claws. I knew what her next play was going to be! The now spiny appendage slithered closer and closer to the underside of Atem's Duel Disk – creeping towards where the latch to unfasten it was. _"Your Duel Disk!"_ I shouted at Atem, the urgent growling noise going totally ignored.

Taking away our only means to win the game was playing as dirty as it came and it was exactly what I'd have done in her position.

Atem didn't even look my way – he was too busy still gloating over his own superiority as he wrestled the monster like he was at a damn rodeo.

Fine! If I wanted the job done I'd have to do it myself, just like always!

Having a head on her shoulders probably factored into Teleia's plot. I forced my injured arm down onto the earth, feeling it shift beneath my talons and pile in the palm of these semi-functional dragon hands as I flexed my claws. They seemed sharp enough; and if they couldn't get the job done there was always my fangs. Being turned into a useless crippled dragon finally seemed to have a benefit!

With a sharp intake of breath I gnashed my teeth together, coiled my tail and readied myself to lunge for Teleia. A sharp and unexpected current of electricity answered me as I focused in on her, the blue membrane of my outer eyelid instinctively sliding into place as Blue-Eyes' body reacted and my jaws snapped open. I could feel my dragon's power pulse, the muscles of my elongated body sparking with a molten heat that quickly built – demanding release. The sensation was incredible. The air crackled around me, buzzing in my brain to blot out all thoughts beyond my target's complete and total annihilation.

"Pyzzzzzz-"

A sudden pair of beeps from Atem's Duel Disk didn't distract me. The warning that something from our deck had been automatically drawn and activated flashed up on the UI in my peripheral vision but nothing else mattered now that I had Teleia in my sights.

"-zzzzzzt."

The Pharaoh squinted at the readout, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the display it like it owed him money. "Burst Stream of Destruction?" He read aloud, voice thick with confusion. His eyes flashed wide as he turned his head to me quick enough to give himself whiplash, the overpowering elation of holding white lightning captive in my maw coursing through me like a shot of pure adrenaline.

"Guuurooooooar!-" The blast ripped free, my mouth and tongue feeling cold as the hot charge refused to be pent up for a millisecond longer.

"-Kaiba! Stop!"

But Atem's startling shout threw my attack off, my head and one wing swinging in his direction to look at him and throwing off the trajectory of my attack. The abrupt shift of balance made my front leg buckle and sent half my body toppling to the floor. Of course, now he was paying attention to me.

"Grrrrrrr!" _"_ _What the hell!"_ I snarled back at him, lifting my head up from the ground to throw the darkest glare at him I could fucking manage.

"What are you thinking?" Atem demanded, like I was face-planting into the floor for kicks because it was such a great way to pass the time. He returned my vicious leer with a glare of his own. "Don't forget that injuring Teleia will harm Isis!"

I hadn't forgotten, I just didn't care. Fake-Ishizu and all of his dreamworld weren't fucking real and he couldn't possibly be stupid enough to not realize what Teleia was planning.

_"She's trying to take your Duel Disk!"_ My voice came out as another pissed off roar. I writhed on the floor like a useless worm, trying to use whatever leverage my tail and other wing could give me to push myself back onto the three legs I had left to work with.

The Pharaoh frowned at me, totally distracted from the Turtle as his eyes climbed all over me, trying to figure me out. "Garooooou!" _"Pay attention!"_ to the tongue, not me! If it took his fucking Duel Disk we'd both be finished!

With an audible 'snap' the Duel Disk on Atem's arm was unlatched.

"What?" Atem barked in surprise and turned his head back to his arm in shock, only now realizing what was about to happen. The stupid idiot!

The tongue snatched up the unclasped device like a lasso and lashed backwards, the tug pulling Atem off balance and back toward the monster as its tongue recoiled into its mouth.

"No!" Atem shouted and then turned on his heel towards in me again with a whirl of his cape. "Kaiba, quickly!" He yelled. I didn't need him to tell me what to do! I snarled at him, even as I started charging up another Burst Stream of Destruction. I lined up Pyramid Turtle as my target and spread my jaws wide open as the warm crackle of tamed lightning rushed between the sharp white tusks on either side of my mouth.

"PYZZZZZZZZTTTTttttttttttt!"

Sphinx Teleia hummed indulgently and grinned at the sight like some kind of semi-bored courtesan. "Tuten Mask, do your work." She ordered, flipping her remaining face down card up to activate a trap. The ridiculous googly-eyed pharaonic death mask was summoned to float in mid air and soaked up my blast. It screamed in fright as it did and then exploded into a shower of particles leaving Teleia's Turtle completely unphased by my attack.

Why did none of these damn cards work the way they were meant to?! I roared in rage as Atem's Duel Disk disappeared in a single gulp, moving down Pyramid Turtle's long scaly neck and into its body as one large angular lump as it fucking swallowed the Duel Disk.

"Ahahahaha!" Teleia cackled, "Now this is done, little Pharaoh!"

I didn't matter! I'd tear her monster apart and get it back and then I'd make her pay for that!

Teleia howled with laughter. Even her Hieracosphinx joined in on the fun with a high pitched screech of amusement. She paused for breath, her lips cutting into a grin as sharp as a scalpel. "My my, just how well will you fair without all your servants and spells at your beck and call?" She mocked.

I grit my teeth; the inhuman fangs I was now stuck with pricking into my gums until I slackened my jaw slightly.

"And behold, here is my parting gift!" Teleia declared, her voice overpowering my furious snarl and stretching her fingers out to brush against the boundary of her makeshift Spellbinding Circle prison to draw and activate another card. It sent a spray of sludge flying from its edges as it flipped up. The card art was unmistakable. A sinewy hand grasping desperately upward towards the sky as the ground cracked open to drag them back down.

Sphinx Teleia brayed with laughter as Fissure took effect. A freak earthquake pounded the ground around us, shredding the rocks under our feet like broken glass. Jagged shards of stone splintered upwards from the force as the terrain was ripped apart.

"It's a shame, a true shame, to crush your succulent bodies" Her expression only got crazier with each word. "But needs must and the Master demands victory!" With a quake that almost sent me back to the floor and a low deafening crunch the ground carved apart. Spellbinding Circle shattered into gold light as the broken ground beneath it compromised the circumference of it's outer ring. "Now be good and die." She snickered, rising up from the floor to stand as subterranean cracks lanced forward toward us.

I reared up onto my hind legs and tried to side step the crevice as it opened up at my feet. It was either nonsensical instinct or reflex, but I opened up the wings on my back again without a second thought and pumped them to get the hell airborne as quickly as possible. The grinding snap of my dislocated shoulder didn't let that happen and slapped me back down with a stab of pain just to make sure I didn't try flying off again. There wasn't enough time anyway. A massive chunk of earth split off, snapping upwards over our heads to crush Atem down like a gnat - and he just stood there. I slammed my front claws into it, trying to wrestle the slab back down and gouging deep scars into the rubble as it rose up all around me.

Snarling at Atem to _"move!_ " did nothing.

He didn't even react; still frozen staring at the spot on his arm that had until a few seconds ago been covered by his Duel Disk.

"Yugi." He muttered to himself, lost in thought, or shock, it was hard to tell. "Without the Duel Disk I can't call the spell to release him." He glanced up at me wide-eyed, like somehow the ground crumbling around him was of no importance in the face of Yugi's situation. Yeah, no kidding. And I was a dragon by the way. Thanks for the consideration, Pharaoh.

_"He'll be fine!"_ I bit back. He was a lot better off than us right now!

As though to prove my point a void yawned open under my claws. My elongated body lurched downwards into nothing and my stomach spun out from the sudden shift in gravity as the stone beneath my back legs crumbled and gave out. I smacked into a rocky ledge as I free fell down the fissure but despite making my head swim for a second hitting the stone floor at the bottom didn't hurt as much as it should of. My scales must have absorbed the shock of the impact.

"Grrr-oof!"

Atem fell in on top of me, making me bark at the unexpected weight as he collided onto my back like a hobbit-sized bag of sand and knocking the air out of my lungs too. He brought a new cascade of rocks and dirt down into... wherever the hell we'd fallen into. A cavern? Some sort of cave network? Rocks as sharp as knives rained over me from the crag that had swallowed me, easily scattering across the thick scales covering my body but sharp enough to slice across the thinner leather of my wing and stab at my dragon's sensitive eyes.

"Gh!" I heard Atem's muted grunt of discomfort from somewhere off to my side as more earth and grit poured into the fissure to bury us so I blindly groped around the approximate space with my damaged wing, feeling the ends of his stupid hair and the sharp angle of one of his shoulders.

"Grrrrf!" This dislocated wing was such a damn pain! It ached like a broken bone as I used it to smack Atem back toward me, shoving him over until he thumped against my chest. I craned my neck backward and buried it behind the limb as the damaged wing covered us with a lurching shudder to blot out the falling debris, shoving the Pharaoh's face in mine. I didn't exactly want him close, but I didn't want him crushed either - not unless it was by me and my deck.

I glared him down beneath the umbrella of my wing, flinching as the rocks struck it. I'd taken the brunt of the fall but it looked like he hadn't exactly escaped unscathed either. Road rash had scuffed up one of elbows and a jagged edge of something had cut a small slice into his cheek. It bled a little. The color matched his eyes - though they seemed weirdly glassy.

"Kaiba..." He grunted, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of the cave-in above our heads but trailing off without adding anything useful beyond my name. I sneered at him. He looked out of it. He better not have smacked his head on the way down and he definitely better not get used to me sticking my neck out for him. Or my wing, in this case. I was Seto Kaiba, not one of his ridiculous servants or some pet dragon meat-shield.

"Rrrrroooh!" A sort of ridiculous sounding reptilian whine jumped out of my throat before I could stop it as an especially heavy chunk of stone smacked against my left side. I groaned, the sound just coming out as a hiss as I raised up my left wing even higher like a blast door. I couldn't keep it still. The bones trembled with effort and sent jolts of pain zapping down it back into my shoulder. Atem watched it shudder and twitch as I strained to stop it and glanced back to my face with concern. I kept my teeth gritted and growled at him, just to make sure he remembered who the fuck he was dealing with.

"It's almost over." He assured me.

I already knew that! I glowered back at him, trying not to wince as the remaining pebbles smacked against the damaged joint. The light above us dimmed and smaller lumps of grit and stone carved lose by Fissure's effect crumbled uselessly against my scales as the hole we'd fallen through closed up completely. I suppressed a pathetic tremble of pain as the last few handfuls of dirt rained over me and cut off the opening to the outside world.

Gradually the dust started to settle in the hot, lightless cavern.

I shook my body like a damn dog, flinging off all the crap that was now caught between my scales and scratching up my wings. It was a relief to lower my left one. I pulled it back over Atem's head, trying to smoothly slide the wing against my back until the muscle groups in my shoulder spasmed and it limply slumped against the ground.

"Grrhhn!" The impact of it hitting the hurt, but the brief flash of pain was so much better than the agony of keeping it raised up.

"Are you alright-" The Pharaoh questioned softly, like he actually cared, "-Yugi?"

But apparently not about me. That figured. Of course now that Yugi was on the scene no one else mattered. Big surprise.

I could only just see it was he frowned and held up the Puzzle in both hands, closing his eyes to listen deeply for some nonsensical reply from his precious host.

"I can't hear him." He muttered, loud enough for me to hear. As if I cared. Yugi was probably safe and sound lounging around in the Puzzle - unlike the two of us who had just been buried alive.

"He'll be fine, idiot." Great job assessing everyone who was actually present and accounted for. My unintelligible snarl made him pause and actually pay me some attention, though the dumb look on his face made it clear he had no idea what I was trying to say. He gave the Puzzle a final once over just to make sure Yugi wasn't going to magically appear – again - and let it go with a frown.

Whatever. It wasn't like coming in second place on the Pharaoh's priority list was anything new when Yugi was around.

"Thank you-" Atem belatedly coughed out, grit and sand falling off of his body as he cleared his throat as actually turned to look at me. "-For shielding me." He finished, swiping one of his dirt-covered arms against his forehead as if to wipe away sweat. The action did nothing except leave a smudge across his face.

"Ghn." _"Tch."_ Try checking on me first next time, Pharaoh. Maybe then your 'thanks' would count for something. He was just lucky I had scales and he didn't. If I'd hadn't been a dragon I'd have found cover for myself and left him to become a tidy smear under the rocks. As it was he still might. The cavern we'd fallen into was big but I wasn't going to rule out the possibility of a cave-in, and if that didn't get him then the Pharaoh looked ready to sweat himself to death. I couldn't blame him. The air down here was so hot it was like a damn sauna.

"Unh." The Pharaoh held his temple and groaned to himself, proving my point, before staring around our new environment with a weirdly unfocused look in his eyes. "How far did we fall?" He wondered out loud as his gaze sluggishly drifted up the cavern wall to the ceiling rubble that had collapsed together to seal up our only exit.

Unless he was thinking of trying to climb out it didn't damn well matter how far we'd fallen. I'd of told him that if I could speak, but since he knew I couldn't I guessed he just wanted to hear the sound of his own voice. Whatever. I rolled my eyes and shrugged dismissively at the stupid question, or tried to before the motion hitched my bad shoulder again and made me flinch.

Those red eyes of his were back on in me in a second, staring at the joint like he doubted the craftsmanship and expected it to give way at any second. He leaned over to it before I shifted my body to maneuver it out of his reach. I tried scowling at him but doubted the expression would take on my current face so bared my teeth at him too. I'd pop it back in once I was human again and right up until that very second I didn't want anyone man-handling any part of my shoulder. Excessive man-handling was the original cause of the injury. Hell, letting someone whose cultural breakthroughs in medicine probably still involved leeches and blood letting mess with the joint was definitely not happening.

Atem frowned at my reaction like he was offended, never taking his eyes off it even as he leaned back against my scales and started rubbing at his forehead.

Tch. No know-it-all proclamation or demand for me to accept some form of his 'help'? The possibility of him having a head injury was becoming more and more likely by the minute.

**Atem**

Kaiba's body remained curled around mine like a great snake. The heat of this place and the sweat streaming from my forehead made me feel as though I was melting away, yet his scales were cool and smooth. It was difficult to will myself away from them but I could hardly stay pressed up against him any longer. I was surprised he hadn't already attempted to throw me off of him already. Wrapped around me as he was I watched the end of his tail flick in irritation out of the corner of my eyes as I glanced down at the Puzzle around my neck one final time. The warm familiar feeling of Yugi's spirit was not forthcoming from it. I hoped he was safe.

My bones faintly ached but I paid them no mind as I slowly found my feet and stepped out of the barrier Kaiba's encircling tail made. My body was beginning to feel oddly stiff and it took me a small portion of effort to take a couple of steps forward. Steeped in the cavern's deep shadows and hidden from sight the short peak of a fallen rock caught my heel as I did so. Kaiba barked hoarsely as I tripped backward to collide with him as he had been trying to stand and with a skitter of claws against rock we both collapsed once more to the floor. A thick plume of dust and dry soil rushed up and made us cough in tandem, Kaiba's draconic throat creating a violent hacking noise.

How strange. Grace was not something I usually lacked, especially in dark places.

"Be careful. The ground is uneven." I observed, though I doubted Kaiba heard.

I studied our point of ingress as he loudly cleared his throat. It was a long drop; one we'd been lucky to survive. From far above us a slender beam of light filtered through the collapsed rocks that now made up the ceiling of the cavern. The thin ray of illumination crawled across my arm, shining in the trickle of blood that dripped from my cheek onto my forearm. I frowned at the glossy droplets as they fused with the collection of welts left behind by Pyramid Turtle's tongue. It wasn't the new addition of the blood that stopped me short - rather it was the lack of the device that had taken that place only a few minutes ago.

How could I have allowed its theft to happen?

"We need to find a way out of here." I noted, keeping my voice level with a calmness that was far from real. We had to find a path back to the surface and recover my Duel Disk, and quickly. Without it Yugi was now a prisoner of the Puzzle. I couldn't allow that. He had trusted me unconditionally and I had unwittingly guided him into his own incarceration.

My fingers found the familiar angles of the Millennium Puzzle by memory alone, the smooth surface of the Item comfortable and solid in my hands.. **"Yugi... "** With practiced ease I willed my thoughts inside of the Puzzle. **"Are you here?"** I asked.

"Ghn graaahou." _"_ _Tch. Leave it alone."_

There was a draconic grumble from Kaiba but I refused to let is distract me from my task. I needed to assure Yugi that this was only temporary; that I would not leave him to what would had been my fate had he and our friends not helped deliver me to my afterlife. I closed my eyes to concentrate harder, willing my focus deeper into the Puzzle and feeling a heavy bead of sweat race down the channel my brows formed as they knitted together in determination.

**"Speak to me."** I pressed.

"Garouuunnhn." _"_ _He's fine. We're not."_

Unlike Kaiba's unintelligible grunts the Puzzle remained silent.

**"Can you hear me?"**

I flooded the Item with my senses, searching with intensity, listening so very carefully for an echo of his spirit or the sound his voice until -

"-Grrrrhn Oarouu." _"_ _We don't have time for this_ _nonsense_ _."_

Kaiba's meaningless growling snapped the thin thread of my concentration. I rounded on him sharply, feeling my temper rear up and assert itself like a wild horse. "Will you cease your perpetual growling!" I ordered him, firmly, tightly. I tried to explain but didn't trust my words - they came out short and clipped. "Yugi is silent and I can't listen for him over your unrelenting noise."

Kaiba snarled, forcefully, his expression darkening and becoming harsh as his tone grew in volume and anger to match my mine.

"Grrrrhngr!" _"_ _That's your fault,_ _not mine_ _!"_

He leered at me - narrowed blue eyes cooling to become glacial and defiant. They trailed my own to my arm and hissed pointedly at the place my Duel Disk no longer adorned as I wearily met his accusatory glare.

"You blame me for this?" I realized. An incredulous anger rushed through my veins.

A short, sharp bark was his swift reply. Kaiba fell back on more draconic methods of communication with a natural ease as he curled his lip at me in affirmation and snapped his jaws in my direction with a gnar of varying tones that no doubt would translate into some suitably acidic retort.

I bristled at his brazenness and pulled a card from his proverbial deck.

"'Spare me', as you would say." I replied, tilting my chin upward to meet his eyes as they glared venomously at me from atop the column of his long white neck. His lack of care filled me with ire. He was hardly a blameless victim here. Yes, he may be a dragon temporarily - a powerful creature that he had long coveted with an almost fanatical appreciation no less- but Yugi's situation was not so similarly attuned in his favor!

"You may be a dragon for a little longer but Yugi's spirit is now trapped!" I seethed, being answered by a rebellious snarl before my sentence could complete. Even stripped of its powers the Millennium Puzzle was still a labyrinthine maze of dangers and secrets! I wouldn't wish the fate of being sealed within it on anyone, let alone Yugi! The very thought of near infinite abyss of twists and lightless hallways sent a feverish shiver down the length of my spine.

Kaiba continued to growl at me; the sound as deep and threatening as encroaching thunder and much like a steadily nearing storm, growing in volume and ferocity. The sound echoed between my ears, stirring up the low hum of the headache I had been nursing since the lake and agitating it with grim determination. I didn't want to contend with his rotten temper, but equally would not allow his belligerence to go unchallenged.

"And what of your own actions?" I countered, not caring to sheath the anger in my voice. Kaiba squared his shoulders - or tried to - as though he were still a duelist preparing for a match and stood up as tall as the limitation of the cave's ceiling would allow to glower down over me. "Was it your intention to incinerate Isis in your bid for victory?" I demanded, already knowing the answer. I'd seen the violent intent gleaming in his eyes like sunlight reflected on a blade as he'd levelled his blast at her. Aggression and outrage made Kaiba's reptilian features feral and pinched but I didn't care. He had nearly killed my priestess! "Perhaps if you hadn't distracted me with that feckless Burst Stream of Destruction attack I would have noticed Sphinx Teleia's plan sooner!" I concluded with finality.

Kaiba roared back with such intensity that the burst of breath blew free the hair that my sweat had slicked to the sides of my face. His roar was becoming familiar to me, yet as the sound of his fury crescendoed a sharp secondary buzz joined together in unison with his bellowing howl. A small pocket of blinding light swelled at the back of his wide open maw.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!"

I barely found the time to dodge out of the way as a blast of white lightning rushed passed my body.

"Hngh!"

The abrupt evasion saved me from the potentially lethal attack, but was not without its own punishment. My sight blackened at the edges as I winced in pain. I clutched tightly to the sash binding my side as a new wave of warm and blood rushed to the surface of the fabric. The wound burned anew as though I had been branded by it. It wasn't healing at all.

Despite our obviously mutual frustration with each other both Kaiba and I fell silent and stilled as an ominous sound rumbled above our heads. Several rocks fell free from the cave's ceiling and with a tense lungful of breath I braced for the worst, throwing my arm across my face to protect my eyes. I didn't dare to breathe again until the tumbling of stone eased into a shower of pebbles and then, mercifully, mere grit.

"Control yourself!" I thundered to Kaiba, the words rushing free from my mouth with a staggered exhalation of breath.

Even transposed upon his draconic features his expression was as human as ever. The blank look of surprise that graced his face as he surveilled the impact of his apparently accidental blast was quickly replaced as he recovered his usual scornful defiance. With a rebellious snarl he snatched his head away to glare off in the opposite direction to the one I currently occupied, seemingly only bothering to reign in his temper now that it could prompt a cave in.

"Be more mindful of our surroundings." I demanded, though this time I was stubbornly ignored.

Fine. If Kaiba was content to sulk then I would let him. It gave me time to search for Yugi once more. Without his petulant snarling undoing my concentration and unraveling my focus perhaps this time I would finally find him.

**"Partner?"** I called out into the Puzzle's darkest reaches; my need to hear him becoming only more pronounced for each second I failed to do so.

The answer I hoped didn't come. The projection of Yugi's thoughts didn't echo back to answer me in kind, but instead where Yugi's phantasmal presence should be there was only nothing. The silence, the lack of him, it was foreboding. An ill-feeling overtook me. I let go of the Puzzle hastily, as though it had scalded me. It caught on the cord around my neck and pendulously swung back and forth as my vision swam.

When I had dwelt within it as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle focusing so keenly in on the Item had once been second-nature. Now I could scarcely stand to probe the very shallowest of its depths for even this meager length of time. Where once I had known sanctuary there was only a deep dread. A tight smothering darkness creeping in at the edges to drink all the air and life from my body.

The cavern seemed to be shrinking, the cave narrowing all around. An oppressive heat lingered thick in these depths, enough to make me feel near lightheaded. Ordinarily such places promised shade from the desert sun and made for cool respites, yet instead it seemed the warmth and darkness were as thoroughly trapped in here as we ourselves now were.

I glanced back to the only source of light, finding the sunbeam dappling over Kaiba's scales to make them shine like polished silver. He seemed oblivious to the cave's constriction and completely unaffected by the heat. Instead he now busied himself pacing as best he could around the cavern, irritably flicking his tail like a hungry lion held at bay on the end of a chain. His left wing was held at a strange angle and now very clearly crooked in comparison to the other and he flinched each time it accidentally buffeted against the cavern floor before jerking it back to his side. It was a painful spectacle to watch.

With Yugi absent there was little more I could do to remedy his situation- yet Kaiba's I could still help, if the oaf would allow it.

"Stay still." I bid him - utterly unsurprised when he did little more than turn his muzzle in my direction to glower at me. I marched to his side, stepping over the cavern's rough terrain to do so with discomfort as each uneven rise and fall of the earth sent pricks of hot pain through the wound in my side.

Kaiba glared as I neared his shoulder, apparently already identifying it as my target. With a hiss of warning he subtly angled the wing away from me. He flinched as he did so, though he tried hiding the reaction behind an impudent toss of his head.

"Let me see." I would give him little choice in the matter. Shielding us from the rocks had clearly made the injury worse. "Unless you're afraid." I goaded, determined to have my way even if I had to bait him.

"Grrrrrrrrr!" _"No way!"_ He thrashed his tail back and forth as though it were a whip, coiling it as he did so.

My fingers extended toward the problematic joint, inching through the air toward the slender bone that connected the shoulder of his wing to his withers. Unceremoniously and with no warning other than an irate snarl I abruptly found the world around me tilting to one side as an answering swipe from Kaiba's tail brought me to me knees. I barely heard my own shout as a ripple of agony rippled across my body from my injury.

I struggled back onto my feet as quickly as my muscles would permit. Everything ached.

Kaiba stared down at me, warily. His expression was indignant and yet still full of reproach.

"Mind your strength!" I demanded, gasping for breath through the sudden frisson of pain that raced around my body from my injury's agitation. I hoped it was mere coincidence he had struck me in the side he already knew to be wounded, but doubted it. He had chosen the place he knew he could achieve the most damage with the most conservative amount of effort, no different from if we had been dueling.

With a pair of heavy thuds he thumped his tail against the ground as though daring me try again. Of course he wouldn't let me help him without a fight, despite the fact he had gone to some length to come to my aid only moments earlier. I crossed my arms as I contemplated the stubborn fool's actions. He had protected me without hesitation; almost without even thinking. Was this because he, Seto Kaiba, had truly wanted to, or was it some compulsion inherited from my steadfast High Priest? The later seemed more likely than the former. Either way Kaiba's vigilance was all that had saved us from accruing another death counter. In fact, he had reacted so quickly to Teleia's actions it was as though he had the foresight to predict them.

A realization washed over me.

"You knew Teleia's plan."

I stole a glance toward him as he snorted to himself, a little of the fury leeching from his pose as the tight coil of his tail released and his shoulders hitched uneasily.

My thoughts drifted in lazy circles instead of marching with their usual precision and order; it was becoming difficult to concentrate and yet suddenly it seemed so obvious. "You were trying to warn me." I concluded, raising my voice only loud enough to close the distance between us. I listened closely for his answer. I needed to understand this.

"Grnh." Came his prickly reply, but beneath the incomprehensible sound there was a tone I recognized. I supposed it was a sort of insult of affirmation; something akin to "Duh" or perhaps calling me an "idiot."

All too quickly I comprehended the reason for his upset. He had been trying to warn me against Teleia's actions and I had all but accused him of sabotage.

"I see." I swiped at my forehead to wipe away the sweat gathering under my hairline.

A contemplative hush descended as we stared at each other. Or rather, I stared and was in turn glared at, no different from one of our duels. The reprieve was fortunate; despite Kaiba's accusatory leer it gave me time to gather my wits and form a strategy. After all, my next words would need to be perfect to restore what remained of our tentative equilibrium.

"I concede that I misjudged the situation." I settled upon, crossing my arms over my chest as I did so with the finality of a book cover closing.

Kaiba's attention was caught on the word 'concede', the sullen curl of his lip relaxing to sheath the threatening fangs he had been exposing like a hyena caught in a hunter's trap.

"Ghnnnn garooo" he huffed out still irritated but now haughty too, my mind supplementing a reply of "took you long enough" over the top of his draconic grumblings. It might not have been a completely accurate guess, but by the bright semi-victorious shine that crept into the corners of his eyes I surmised it was close. With a derisive snort he finally eased his glare and turned his head away. I nodded slowly, though he could no longer see me do so.

Understanding him wasn't as hard as I had first thought it to be now that I was truly paying attention. There was still meaning in the small adjustments to his expression; to the movements of his body and the sounds he made. Discerning the proper interpretation was challenging but hardly impossible - somewhat like playing the first round in an unfamiliar game.

Like all games, it was now mine to master.


	19. Chapter 19

**Kaiba**

"Are we-" Atem paused for thought, his eyebrows tensing together like he was trying to figure something out. "-'Good'?" He settled on.

Were we 'good?' That sounded like something Wheeler would come out with.

Not very, but as good as we ever were. Him blaming me for losing his own Duel Disk was as idiotic as it was irritating but he'd 'conceded' that to me. His surrender was better than any sullen apology would ever be. That made us even.

I snorted back. Yeah, we were 'good' enough. For now. Until the next time he decided to blame me for his own incompetence.

"Alright then." He added, slowly blinking at me like I was some half-feral cat.

We stared at each other in the almost-comfortable-but-not lull of our mutual agreement that we were now 'good'. I'd missed a Friendship 101 class somewhere in Gozaburo's curriculum and without being able to speak I had no idea what to do next. I could count the seconds tick by in drips echoing from some far off chamber to my right and with each one of them the silence became incrementally more awkward.

Atem blinked twice, as though he'd just woken up from some daydream. "Do you hear that?" He questioned. His chunky earrings jingled against the sharp contours of his cheek as he turned his head and glanced off toward the sound of my makeshift clock.

"Yeah." I growled out. It sounded more like a hum. "So what?"

"That's the sound of our way through this cave." Atem declared - so certain he might as well have been putting a card into play or commanding a monster to attack. His stance became rigid with that dueling confidence that locked every line in his body into place as he pointed us onward, down an opening in the cave wall that could only have been about six foot tall at most. That was fine for him, but even if I was still a human I'd have had to stoop to go through it. In my current form he was just being delusional; especially when a comfortably dragon-sized tunnel was right beside it. I nudged him in the back with my nose toward the clearly superior option. He staggered forward as I almost knocked him over again, only this time it wasn't deliberate. His sandals slapped against the cave floor as he steadied himself and glanced back at me in reprimand but at least this time he didn't shout at me to 'control myself' again. As if he was one to talk.

As a dragon approximately twice my normal height and likely four times my normal weight going down the larger tunnel suited me best, but that wasn't the only reason for my vote. It would suit Atem better too. He just didn't know it yet. If he thought I'd missed it his strange reaction in the forest, or that it hadn't aroused my curiosity, then he was dead wrong.

"Not that way, Kaiba." He'd decided. I narrowed my eyes at him as he took a step back toward the smaller tunnel, planting one leg on its opening like he was claiming it as new land for his kingdom and didn't have a flag handy. "We should follow the sound of the water." He flicked his wrist at me, beckoning me over. I had my doubts in the wisdom of that.

"And what? You've got a dowsing rod hidden somewhere up your skirt?" I didn't think he'd understand all of that, but he seemed to read the dubiousness in my tone if his pensive frown was anything to go by.

"It's the quickest path through." He insisted, holding out his hand in some misguided invitation even though he knew damn well I didn't have a hand of my own to spare right now and wouldn't have grabbed onto his even if I did.

"Fine. Whatever." Impracticality aside I couldn't deny I was brutally interested in confirming an earlier suspicion.

I jerked my right arm at the tunnel as an invitation for him to go first. He caught onto it and inclined his head regally - as though he was thanking me for my service and pointed his body down the narrow opening in the cave wall. He paused there stiffly, lingering weirdly at the tunnel's mouth and I drank in that heady rush that comes with being proven right as a small shiver ran the length of his spine. His breath caught in his throat and he glanced back at me.

I smirked in reply and nodded him on down the cavern. Despite having a dragon's face I must have managed to make my expression every bit as challenging as I wanted it to be - challenging enough to make sure he stuck with his decision. He was too prideful to back out now with me goading him.

"You made the choice Pharaoh; deal with it." I growled, making sure to put as much amusement in my tone as physically possible for a giant white lizard. It did the trick. He scowled at me and with a prissy furl of his cape squared his shoulders and marched forward down his chosen path, the whites of his eyes just a little bit brighter than normal.

Sure. Let him go charging off into that tight, dark little cave with a dragon boxing him in behind. If I was right and he really was remotely claustrophobic it would serve him right for being an arrogant blowhard. Then again, knowing the Pharaoh even if he was terrified he'd probably refuse to react, just to prove how superior he was.

What would he even look like, crushed in true fear's iron grip? True terror was an emotion I'd never personally managed to put on his face - or Yugi's face, to be accurate. Fear was just another sort of flaw and I'd searched well enough for something to exploit to know the King of Games was just about as infuriatingly infallible as they came. The very thought of him showing weakness of any kind under any circumstance repulsed me, but was somehow also compelling at the same time.

Would he turn pale and wide-eyed? I didn't like that idea. That would make him look too much like Yugi. Maybe his pupils would shrink to pin-pricks and his lips would crack open as his teeth gritted together, the stupid Puzzle buffeting again that toned chest of his as it worked itself overtime and he sweated out from the temples down.

I liked that thought better. I kept poking at the image in my mind, getting a jolt back from it every time I did. There really was an appeal in breaking down the mighty; even in my own imagination.

Shit.

Whatever misplaced hormones were fueling this fucking weird little tangent evaporated as Gozaburo's victorious leer smacked me in the brain. My jaw was clenched so tightly together it took effort to reopen as I shut the whole train of thought down, decommissioned it and melted it for scrap.

Atem's hair swayed like he'd been looking at me in the few nanoseconds I'd been distracted and quickly turned his head back around so he wouldn't get caught. He covered it up by starting to talk - largely to himself. I suspected it was to keep his own nerves steady rather than to make conversation with me, since the best response he was going to get would be some variation of 'garoo'. It figured he'd take comfort in the sound of his own voice.

"This canyon is full of caves like these." The cavern hollowly echoed his words back to him. He stretched out his long dark fingers and ran his fingertips against the cave wall as we walked. "They feed water into my kingdom's largest oasis." Some dust and grit came back on them and he wiped it off on his outfit like a little kid would.

He glanced back at me and there was this lukewarm heat that I didn't recognize in his eyes.

"It was my mother's favorite place in our lands." He reminisced aloud, clearly not caring that I clearly didn't care. Either forgetting it was dirty or not caring he placed his palm flat against the cave wall again and leaned against it nonchalantly, but I could still see his chest rise and fall irregularly in the half-light. He was trying to steady himself, and trying to do it under the radar without me noticing. It was way too late for that, but whatever. I'd let him curb his little mini freakout in private as repayment for back in the pod.

There was a pause as his eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "She taught me to swim there when I was still a prince." He realized. "I'd forgotten that." He added quietly, his tone smooth but lacking his usual theatrical projection. That was for the best - last thing we needed was another one of his loud-mouth proclamations causing a real cave in. What a way to die.

I thought of him as a duelist first and a Pharaoh second - if at all. Was that why it suddenly felt so damn weird to think that he'd been born a prince, vacationing in private oases and surrounded by whatever else passed as luxury in this backwards time? It was hard to imagine someone so infuriatingly capable had been born a coddled 'old money' aristocrat with a silver spoon in his mouth. As a little Pharaoh-to-be I'd bet he'd never had to snatch the world up in his hands and bend it until either he it broke or it broke him. No wonder he was the sort if dolt who fell for the idea of 'destiny' and 'fate'. If 'fate' did exist, it had been damn good to him.

"She grew ill and passed on when I was young." He remarked with a hollow note of disbelief, like he'd just remembered the fact. The information was bleak but hardly a shock. You didn't get to be a teenage Pharaoh without a at least few untimely deaths in the family. I heard his breathing level out but couldn't see his face. "It was peaceful." He added, sounding almost serene about it while he glanced down at his hand and flexed his fingers. I didn't have anything to say in response so I grunted just to show I was listening. Ironically it was the first semi-human sound I'd manage to vocalize with any degree of accuracy since polymerizing with Blue-Eyes. Whatever he thought the point of telling me all this was I wasn't getting it but I didn't like how he was talking. His tone almost made death sound like a relief instead of an escape or a weapon, like it really was. Moronic.

He turned to me slightly, just enough for me to make out some plaintive expression. Right now looked more like Yugi than he did himself and that really got under my skin. He lifted one hand and cradled the Puzzle in it with a far off look that was so alien to his usual hyper-calibrated focus. "We have that in common." He surmised, frowning softly as he patted the wall and finished grounding himself. With another overly-dramatic flip of his cloak he turned away from me and took off down an adjacent tunnel, leaving me to tag along behind him like some useless sidekick.

"Ghn." Think again, Pharaoh.

We might both have lost our mothers but apparently the circumstances couldn't have been more opposite. My mother had been happy and healthy, right up until the night she wasn't, at least. The last memory I had of my mom was her energetically laughing and joking she was lucky to still fit through the door of our crummy little apartment as my dad ran around the house packing a bag for her to use in the maternity ward. Her excitement had been contagious and looking back on it, that was probably the last time I saw my biological father smile. I didn't really get it when he came back with just a baby and not my mom. I didn't understand how someone like her who'd been so vigorously present could suddenly be 'gone'. I hadn't thought about that in a long time. I'd conditioned myself not to. Each time I did it felt like I was betraying Mokuba and it wasn't his fault. People die.

"It's hard to believe I could have ever forgotten such memories." Atem belatedly muttered with a soft frown, completely lost in his own memories as his voice cut off mine. I stayed quiet, just letting him have his moment. His tone was somber, but not exactly mournful and his breathing was back to normal. Guess despite the depressing subject matter the nostalgia had calmed him down.

Or not.

"Kaiba." Atem glanced back at me with a troubled frown a second later. His expression set my teeth on edge, but that wasn't enough to prepare me for his follow up question. "How old were you, when you lost yours?" He asked seriously, eyebrow slightly perking with either sympathetic interest or grim curiosity - it was hard to tell.

"Grrrrrrn." I growled out a little warning before I could get ahead of the impulse and squash it.

I didn't like the focus of this one-sided conversation suddenly shifting onto me, but I'd still take whatever this morbid grieve-a-thon was to the low key freakout he'd been building up to before. What that would be like I had no idea, but I didn't want to have to deal with it. Swapping stories about dead parents was right at the bottom of my bucket list, one down from being bludgeoned to death with a socket wrench, but there was no point in not telling him. Curiosity seemed to giving him something to focus on and any mystery about my origins was already known to him - at least in part - no thanks to Noah. He and Yugi had already seen far too much of my childhood thanks to that prepubescent punk's asinine little recreations in his virtual world.

Blue-Eyes' claws didn't fully bend or flex like human fingers. I had to stop limping around behind him and re-balance my center of gravity before I could apply them to the cave wall with any sort of precision. After he got his answer he'd probably lose interest. It's not like I could ever hold his attention for more than a duel's length of time anyway. Atem paused, his frivolous gold headband glittering in the half-light as he turned around fully to see what I was doing.

With a few swipes I managed to scratch five grooves into the rocks and just about make them level within an acceptable variance. Striking through the tally with a diagonal line was the hardest part. Atem nodded at them in understanding. Good. Elaborating would have been annoying.

"I see." He stroked the gouges I'd made with a look I couldn't even start to decode but shut up at least. Silence settled between us again but before I could celebrate the end to the uncomfortable conversation he prodded me again, like he was trying to squeeze me for information that he had no right to. "Do you remember her well?" He asked in a tone that was clearly designed to be as unassumingly neutral as physically possible. It fell short. There was nothing unassuming about the Pharaoh at all - ever.

"Mind your own business." My words came out as a hiss of warning. What was with him? I'd already answered one pointless question and I wasn't going to do it again. He should have quit while he was ahead.

"I can almost hear you telling me to keep my questions to myself." Atem mocked, recovering his normal volume slightly and throwing an oh-so-superior smirk at me. Arrogant know it all. I snapped at him with my teeth, not really to bite him - though if I did by accident then he deserved it. He was so light of his feet he effortlessly dodged out of the way of my teeth even in the narrow space and glared at me for that. I glared the hell back. I wasn't the one who was suddenly determined to talk about my dead mom. He needed to back off. My past was off-limits and totally irrelevant. Only my future mattered - the future that Mokuba and I were going to keep playing out. If 'fate' was a thing and really had dealt us such pathetic cards then it must be pretty pissed to know I'd turned them into a winning hand. I felt my jaw twist into a decidedly inhuman smirk. The muscles and bones all pulled in strange ways.

The Pharaoh side-eyed my expression, the same way you would a bomb with a faulty detonator. The look was annoying but it was the answer to his question was what had really irritated me. I knew that if I paused and really contemplated it, the answer would be 'no'. No, I didn't remember my mother well. Not when compared to the detail I'd recalled Atem in when building his AI counterpart. Almost every one of those memories was perfect in clarity and absolute in accuracy. By comparison I wasn't sure of much about my mom and the memories that were left over could just be a byproduct of wishful thinking.

I could remember her smile, but couldn't draw it with drafting paper in front of me. She'd had Mokuba's eyes and I'd inherited her paler complexion. Those were just about the only two things I was sure of. It didn't matter. It was useless information. She was dead. My brain had no reason to store the data and absolutely no need to retrieve it. Dead people were irrelevant.

Atem was still frowning, but kept watching me expectantly through the corner of his eye so I shook my head at him. At least that would shut him up. He dipped his in acknowledgement and didn't comment or follow up, instead letting his line of inquiry lapse into silence.

The steady narrowing of the tunnel came as a relief from this mindless conversation.

Five foot of space became four and a half - then four and a quarter. My wings were so cramped against my back that they began to ache in protest. Looks like being compressed so tightly against the body wasn't whatever counted as 'natural' for them. The only point scored was the dislocated one didn't have enough room to jostle around in anymore and by proxy wasn't bothering me as much. What bothered me now instead was Blue-Eyes' instincts. Compact spaces didn't phase me - most of my favorite places like the cockpit of my jet and drivers seat of my cars were smaller than this, but that was as a human. Now that I was polymerized some primordial alarm bell was shrieking at the back of my lizard-brain that being in a place too tight to turn around in and being unable to open my wings out fully with no obvious way out other than Atem's 'follow the sound of water' theory was a fucking terrible idea. I ignored it. Not being able to turn around wasn't going to be a problem. Turning back wasn't my thing.

Narrowing or not, the further through the tunnel we got the more likely the idea they acted as a feeder for some mythical paddling pool became. The floor of the cave was beginning to smooth out as if there'd been water flowing over it at some point to erode away all of the hard edges and the dripping noise had been joined by the muffled sound of some stream rushing around somewhere.

I snorted to myself as the light from the Puzzle's eye slid over the next obstacle in this farcical misadventure.

Up ahead a partial cave-in had lowered the ceiling, dropping the height of the tunnel by a few feet. Atem slid his arms over his chest to cross them and stared at the collapse as though that alone would clear it. There was a new flush of heat across his face that was obvious even in the low light and against his darker Egyptian complexion as he turned to me, sizing me up with a calculating look and then glanced back at the gap between the stones.

"You won't fit." He deduced thoughtfully, as if I'd played a new trap card on him and he was deciding the best countermove.

"Oof. Shocker." I grunted back as sarcastically deadpan as a dragon's limited vocal cords were capable of sounding. It was too late for him to come to that conclusion. "Stay here, I'll see what's ahead." He commanded, tossing me a firm look to convince me to do what he wanted. I growled back at him and his stupid order. Of course I was going to 'stay here.' I couldn't go anywhere.

He ducked down to get through the opening and disappeared from view as he reached the other side, leaving me to stand around quietly in the dark like a moron. My tail thumped in irritation. I'd have to get a better grip on it - it seemed to have a mind of it's own. Holding it still as it tried doing it again distracted me for a few seconds, until-

"-Grrr!" From behind the rocks I heard Atem inhale sharply first, and then grunt. His sandals slapped around irregularly like he'd staggered off balance and then there was just a deep labored gasping noise.

Hearing that - from him - set me on edge.

"What?" I snapped - gritting my teeth so hard my jaw hurt.

He didn't reply.

"Hey!" I snarled, throwing away all of the fucks I gave about causing a cave in as I blasted the opening wider with my breath and jammed my head and neck through the hole, half digging out and half wriggling my good arm and a section of my torso through before my wings snagged on the rocks.

He'd reached a makeshift hub in the cave network; tunnels and passages were everywhere - veering off in every direction like synapses from a brain and Atem was just standing there right in the middle, staring forward at nothing - fists clenched, svelte muscles straining against his sweat-slicked skin as if a fight was about to break out.

"What the hell is up with you?" I roared, blasting away at more of the rock and squeezing through my wings and back-end. I didn't even bother trying to fight the instinct as my tail thrashed like a whip as I closed in on him.

We weren't 'friends' or anything so pathetic but it was obvious something was wrong with him and that angered me.

"This is-" He choked out, strangling the rest of the sentence off like he couldn't breathe and the stare he was giving the cavern was unfocused. Distressed. A new sheet of sweat broke out over his forehead as a wet shine on his skin reflected in the low light. His hand reached for the material of his robe, snatching up a tight fist of linen right over his heart. His dark knuckles turned almost white as he just stood there, holding the fabric in a death grip so hard his hand started to shake. Those shudders spread down his arm and through his body like a thousand volts. Within seconds he was trembling from his jaw to his knees.

Great. So he was going to freak out anyway, making all that distracting nostalgic nonsense about our dead moms totally worthless. That figured.

The Pharaoh's head swiveled back and forth looking around the room and with each abrupt turn his footing shifted off-balance as though he was dizzy or drunk. I snatched up the neckline of his cape and pulled him against me to right him as he almost fell flat on his ass. His arms hooked around my neck for purchase, pulling himself against me until we were so damn close he could lean his forehead against mine.

"Grhn." A short quiet hum was the only protest I could come up with while he was acting this way. It was the only noise other than the sound of Atem's ragged half-breaths as I listened to him gasp for breath in a cave full of air, the hoarse inhalations just loud enough to be annoying and irregular enough to be a concern.

"You're having a panic attack." I told him with zero uncertainty, feeling his pulse race against my snout. I'd had one before, the first year I arrived at the Kaiba Mansion, though I'd never admit that weakness to anyone. My intended grunt was just a harsh vaguely lizard-ish chirp by the time Blue-Eyes' mouth finished parsing out the words. "Nhhhhhhggggr." _"Just breathe already."_

His lips opened and closed without saying anything and those freakish red eyes I couldn't look away from snapped back into focus at the sound I was making - momentarily pulled out of his meltdown. They jumped over my face but didn't really land anywhere in particular. It was disturbing to see him of all people lose it. I didn't like watching this. That in itself surprised me.

Fine. Very deliberately I breathed in through my nostrils and out through my mouth, ignoring the stabbing humiliation of pantomiming the action with such embarrassing exaggeration. It took me repeating it over a few times until the motions finally caught Atem's full attention and he got it into his head that I wasn't doing this fun little breathing exercise for my own damn amusement. He started trying to copy me.

"Good. Keep doing that." I grumbled out as he got into the rhythm, irritated. I was glad to quit the stupid act. His eyes locked on my mouth, staring at it as though hanging on my every tone and if he looked away he'd be sucked out of existence.

"So much for the legendary King of Games." I taunted in a stupidly soft growl.

I should be enjoying this - seeing the Pharaoh's moronic insistance that we take this path play out against him, just like I'd known it would. I'd predicted the result perfectly, right down to the way his pupils shrank until they were so small I almost couldn't make them out anymore even as they also managed to pulsate in the darkness. So why was watching this so damn uncomfortable? The Pharaoh was a big-headed windbag who needed to be cut back down to size. He deserved this and I hated him.

No, that wasn't accurate. The thought jumped out of my brain like an over-keen intern given a coffee order and just like one of those air-headed dolts I wasn't sure if it darted out the door with the right information. I needed to clarify.

"I hate everything you've done to me." I rationalized out loud, my declaration came out as a soft huffy sound - closer to a coo than the snarl I'd wanted it to be. "Every humiliating defeat you've handed me-" The second try I got what I wanted. Aggression soaked into my vocalizations - adding enough to make a sound worthy of being made by a dragon. "-Every pompous lecture." It figured that adding hostility to my tone got Atem's attention. The fog in his eyes receded a bit as he lifted them to mine to figure me out. "Every. Single. Scar." I snapped, throwing out the sentiment as a real snarl that commanded his full focus and hissing at him so hard it blew his bangs back from his face for a second. Clarity came back into his eyes as he really looked at me, reigning in his breathing as he sized me up, his right eyebrow raising slightly in some half-formed challenge.

"I hate that you walked out on our battle, to go and what? Be dead?" I pressed, losing my momentum and my fighting spirit from the sound of the tepid draconic murmur. It was such a stupid waste. No goodbye. Nothing left behind. Just like my mom. I couldn't even stand to look at him. I whipped my head away. What else? There was more. There had to be. I'd spent too many sleepless nights lying paralyzed in bed under the weight of exactly how much I despised the Pharaoh and his friends, and his cards, and his genuine belief in total nonsense to be short on grievances to voice.

"Kaiba-"

"-And I hate your ridiculous hairdo, you mutant freak." I sneered out in conclusion - the sound just as gravelly and soft as the first simpering coo had been as my anger towards the Pharaoh lost its charge.

Atem was in the process of catching his breath but still somehow managed to sound haughty as he noted dryly "That had best not have been an insult."

"Tch." He clearly didn't understand me so that had to be a lucky guess.

Atem weakly smirked, his pupils were still small so he was clearly still shaken up but coming out of it if this was anything to go by. I grunted at him and his irritating ability to figure me out only when it was least useful, to me anyway.

"Your tone is obvious." He added in tight words, wiping away some of the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand and then trying to pull his cloak smooth. It was a pointless gesture - he was still sweating buckets but there was a vague relief in watching him go through the mechanical motions of fixing himself up. "Don't think being a dragon allows you to slander me without my understanding."

My reply was a hollow snort, watching as the Pharaoh pulled himself together at record speed.

"What the hell was all of that anyway?" I demanded, flipping my nose at him like an over-eager dolphin so he'd get the question. Atem placed his own hand in his chest, breathing deeply and slowly to try bringing himself back under control and then grimaced and looked away. He was still shaking.

"For just a moment, I thought -" he hesitated, swallowed thickly and muttered the rest against my scales with hot breath. "- I thought I was imprisoned within the Puzzle once more." All his usual swagger and confidence was out to lunch and I now discovered that smugness was just as irritating when it was missing as when it was at full power. "I've never experienced anything like that before." He added and frowned. So that was it, huh? Spend a few thousand years inside the world's most impractical necklace and you get an exotic tan, a private paradise and a healthy dose of cleithrophobia or whatever this was as a severance package. Atem scowled to himself scornfully and then took another few deep breaths, just like I'd showed him. "How foolish." He whispered ruefully.

"Don't be an idiot." Of course the one time he was actually making sense he'd dismiss it as 'foolish'. In comparison to most of his usual nonsense this was damn sensible. At least as sensible as any phobia could be. I couldn't imagine what it was like to be trapped forever in some oversized trinket swinging from Yugi's pencil neck but I did know what it felt like to be a prisoner, though my way of dealing with it wasn't exactly the same. Unlike Atem I willingly returned to the site of my prior incarceration every night after work. Although I hated the place I'd succeeded in making the Kaiba mansion into a home for Mokuba, and I needed somewhere to store my coats and cards.

"The feeling is passing." He declared as he shakily stepped away from me to finish tidying his outfit. Kneeling down to straighten out of the gold band around his ankles that had somehow gone askew made him wince briefly but he ignored it, shooting the tired remains of his usual prideful expression back at me as he took a few more deep breaths. "Thanks to you." He added, somehow still managing to sound proud and cavalier.

"Save it." I huffed, illogically talking back like we were still capable of having a real conversation. "I'm not like Yugi." I growled. Or tried to. The words this time didn't translate as a growl or a roar, instead they became a deep humming noise. The sound was far too soft. I could never imagine an actual dragon making it. "I wasn't trying to help." I concluded. I just didn't want to watch him lose his proverbial shit.

I didn't want to see him, the unbeatable King of Games, afraid or venerable. I couldn't stomach weakness, but it hadn't been as annoying to deal with as I'd thought. In anyone else I'd find a panic attack pathetic - but then, Atem wasn't like 'anyone else'. He was anything but. The Pharaoh was utterly untouchable. Relentlessly powerful. Nearly unbeatable. He'd stood up against Pegasus, against Noah, against Anubis and Dartz; carving out a path to victory as I was knocked unconscious or comatose, or petrified. He was so formidable it was inhuman.

This didn't make him seem weak to me. It made him seem...'comparable'.

"It helped, regardless of your intentions." He belatedly noted his dry lips quirking into almost a smile - apparently continuing the already one-sided conversation I'd been distracted from and guessing what my reply had been with some sudden burst of expert accuracy.

The Pharaoh swallowed thickly and swiped away a fresh layer of sweat from his forehead as he finished preening like a flashy bird, swiftly changing the subject at the same time. "You should know, I can understand you." Those red eyes of his turned on mine, thicker than blood as he carefully wiped a bead of perspiration off the Puzzle. If it was hot enough in here to even make the Pharaoh of Egypt melt then I was happy to stay a dragon a while longer.

"Oh yeah?" I tested, supremely doubtful. If he really could with any degree of accuracy there was no way he'd just calmly stand there after everything I'd just shouted at him.

"Yes."

Tch. 'Yes' was a generic answer with a wide pool of applications - him replying with it was just a lucky guess.

He stared at me, still a little breathless but apparently feeling good enough now to try pissing me off. "Not the words. But your feelings." My feelings? I sneered at him. This was starting to sound far too personal for my tastes, again. Besides, there was no way that was true. "Snarl at me all you want, but I don't return them." He added with self-satisfied confidence. "Your anger. Your bitterness. They're wasted on me." Atem's answer to my disbelieving glower was just a mild little smirk. It sounded like such a simple conclusion coming from his mouth. As if I could just throw them away as 'waste' and still be me. I might be talking to Atem version 2.0 since he got his memories back but the rest of us didn't get to download system-wide personality updates like that.

He closed his eyes slowly, his long dark eyelashes shuttering against cheek before flicking back open with a challenging gleam. "Resent me all you want, but I'm fond of you." Came the declaration to back up his expression. "Foolhardy as that may be." He taunted.

My heart rate leaped nonsensically as if we were about to duel. Definitely too personal. I snapped at him angrily for trying to mess with my head but he didn't even flinch. Atem could lecture me over a dueling arena about being hate-filled, angry, arrogant or just generally unlikable until he used up all the oxygen on Earth, but 'fond'. What did that even mean? 'Fond' was a word that meant everything or nothing. It could be equated to loving something, or liking it, or even just a vaguely positive indifference.

I didn't know why I even cared. What did it matter? I growled at him, hoping he got the message to shut the hell up and stop saying ridiculous things.

He smirked in my face at that and shook his head, the motion making his feathery gold bangs lazily sway back and forth. With a flick of his hand he waved the comment away, instead stretching his arm up to pat my side like I was an oversized horse. It was strategic I realized as he left his hand poised next to my bad shoulder. It trembled slightly against my scales but he ignored it as his eyebrow arched questioningly.

"Grrrrrrr." Was that it? He'd said what he had so I'd lower my guard and he could fulfill some pressing need to try his hand at being an amateur physiotherapist?

The surface of his bracelet flashed in the Puzzle's light as he held his arm aloft for a long minute before dropping it back to his side. A contemplative look slid over his face. "Do you think less of me now?" Was his eventual question. I could sense some kind of trap was being set at his crimson eyes glanced up to watch me carefully. Did I think less of him? For freaking out on me? It's not like I hadn't done it to him before and hypocrisy was for idiots. I rolled my eyes at him. "Then trust I won't think less of you either." He concluded as one of his copper fingers gestured toward my left wing again. There was an easy finality to the statement as he tried to snare me with my own logic but I wasn't buying it. A panic attack and a dislocated shoulder were hardly equals. "You helped me, Kaiba." He added, side-eyeing me carefully as his shadow quivered on the cavern wall. He was still shivering, though it wasn't so obvious any more. "It's my turn to settle the score."

"Fine!" I snapped. It didn't matter if Atem was chewing me out across an arena or shaking in fear in some claustrophobic cave, he was still a true duelist, and still my rival. It was likely he needed to do this to take back some slice of his pride back after everything that just happened and I'd done worse things for the same reason. I straightened up my spine and leveled him with a warning glare. I'd give him one shot at it. Just one.

The message got through. Atem inclined his head and fluidly stepped back into my personal space.

A moment ago he was barely standing on his own damn feet, but just like in a duel, with him everything could change in a minute or less. He seemed surefooted as he hopped up from an outcropping and hoisted himself up onto my back with a flex of his biceps. I coiled my neck around and observed him as leaned forward and slowly stroked down the length of the bone connecting my wing to my shoulder blade.

"It'll be better if you don't watch." He noted with neutrality, for once as a suggestion rather than some trite command.

Tch. I shook my head. It wasn't like this was the first time I'd had this done.

"Alright." He nodded in acknowledgement and didn't try to talk me out of it again.

My scales felt warm as he pressed his fingers over them, swirling them around my joint in sweeping concentric circles until "-Graaah!" I flinched as Atem found the spot he was looking for, feeling my tail lash out behind me to relieve the agony. So gently I almost couldn't feel it his hands moved from the sore spot to palpated the area around it, almost as if he actually knew what he was doing.

"Kaiba." His tone was deeper and rich in a way I had no idea how to quantify. He leaned forward, his strong thighs tensing around my sides to anchor him to my back. "Your dueling is predictable and you'll never defeat me."

"WHAT!" My yell was a sharp bark that could have cut steel, followed by a long anguished "GAH-roooooooooooouuu!" as he used my outrage as a distraction and relocated my shoulder with the loud hollow grinding noise of bones rubbing together. The adrenaline from my surge of pure unfiltered fury fought back the throbbing sting as I snapped at his feet and then at his knees as he pulled them away out of my reach.

"Well done." Atem praised, testing the joint with his hands until he had to use them as leverage as I thrashed, roaring for him to get the fuck off me so I could blast his face off.

"You bastard!" His legs squeezed my sides even harder as I tried to throw him, stretching up on my four now perfectly serviceable legs and arching my back to squash him like an insect between my back and the cave ceiling. He laughed - deeply - like he was having the time of his life. My wings spread open as wide as they could in the cavern's limited space and I flapped them them without even needing to think to dislodge him. It felt good to be able to maneuver both of them at once for the first time. Their leather brushed against the stone of the cavern's ceiling and suddenly I longed for open sky with a basic cell-deep intensity that defied all of my common sense.

Atem's weight on my back was suddenly negligible. Almost non-existent.

It was as if I was trapped in another board meeting listening to yet another droning presentation while the perfect weather for flying my jet heckled me from outside of the floor-to-ceiling length windows of the Kaiba Corporation tower. The drive to get out of this cave flooded back, twice as strong as it had been ever before. The feeling was primeval, fundamental, instinctive. I could practically feel the wind howling across my scales and smell the air.

Fine! If Atem wanted a rodeo ride he'd damn well get one.

My talons crunched down into the rocks underneath my body and then loosened, raking thin white scratches into the cavern floor and inhaled deeply through my nostrils. Blue-Eyes' body didn't need any other direction than that. I lunged down one of the adjacent tunnels, my claws and tail chilling as I vaulted into a subterranean river and sprinted for some far off speck of light at the end of the tunnel and the promise of sunlight, sky and freedom.


	20. Chapter 20

**Solomon**

"Everything that survived the flooding is written in some sort of sub-dialect." Arthur explained, enthusiasm for his work shining brightly in his eyes as he looked over his findings one more time. "It seems closely based on what we know of conventional religious scripture from that time period, but it's almost as though it's been deliberately muddled."

I nodded to Arthur through my computer camera as I studied the copy of his notes that I'd printed out to review at my old friend's request. It had been a long time since my name carried weight as an Egyptologist, but Arthur kept me up to date on all the latest discoveries and it was my pleasure to look over his work whenever a newly discovered artifact left him puzzled.

"Like it's been jumbled with some sort of code." I agreed, leafing through the pile of papers. The tablet fragment pulled from the water behind one of the tomb's false doors had been the only piece not to have been encrypted. That alone made it seem remarkably out of place. Arthur's words drew my attention back to him. "We know so little about this time period, Solomon. Imagine if this tomb is the key to understanding all those missing years of Egypt's history." Excitement was obvious in his voice.

I chuckled. The generation before, during and after the reign of the Pharaoh that once lived under this very roof with us – in a manner of speaking – was still largely lost to time. Besides the tablets discovered by Maximillion Pegasus and my own discovery of the Tomb of the Nameless Pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings, artifacts from his dynasty were rare and many defied traditional translation techniques.

"They're thinking of nicknaming him 'the Silver Pharaoh'." Arthur added, eagerly. He had a habit of jumping from one topic to the next without any notice, but as a dear friend of so many years I'd become used to the leaps in conversation and kept up well enough. Well it was better than 'the Water Pharaoh', which was the last nickname I'd heard being pitched on the archaeological forums. Being nicknamed for the flooding of your own tomb would be unfortunate.

"Oh ho ho! They've confirmed the remains are male?" I asked belatedly. The processes were so quick these days.

"They believe so. The Ministry of Antiquities pushed for machines to drain the tomb within a few days. It revealed the sarcophagus and Solomon, it's made of silver!" Arthur exclaimed in a hushed tone of awe and wonder.

What a find. For the ancient Egyptians, gold was regarded as the flesh of the gods and silver was believed to be their bones. In fact, silver was rarer in Egypt than gold and often had to be imported from Western Asia and the Mediterranean. That alone carried implications for the Pharaoh's character. Trade routes of the time would have been difficult to negotiate and defend.

"Fascinating, I-" The cheerful chirp of a phone ringing interrupted me and my friend glanced around his office as if he expected to find the source of the noise in there with him.

"It's not mine." Arthur confirmed as he hastily checked his pockets, pulling out a sturdy old cell phone to double check. It was a tough old girl; a brick by modern standards with dust from one archaeological dig too many lodged forever in between its buttons.

"No, it's mine." I replied, sparing him the trouble a moment too late. I recognized the ring tone. "Excuse me for just a minute, old friend."

"Of course." Arthur's mustache quirked into a warm smile. Being clean shaven made it stand out against his face. I scratched at my beard as I found my feet and ignored the ache of my back as I ambled toward the kitchen phone. Perhaps I should shave it off? Spring and summer were around the corner, after all, and the young women these days seemed to appreciate a clean shaven man. In may day growing such a healthy beard had been a sign of masculinity but those times were gone now. Despite that, the more I contemplated it, the less I liked the idea of shaving it. It was too late to be trying to teach this old dog new tricks. I slid the phone out of its receiver and parted it from the wall, watching the cord waggling from its end and tangle on itself as I did so. Case in point, I chuckled.

The number on the display wasn't one I recognized. It seemed strange that whoever it was calling would call through to this phone and not the one in the shop front, but stranger things had happened.

"Kame Game; toys, collectibles and novelties." The new greeting was Yugi's creation.

I could tell that running this store with me wasn't his calling even before he seemed to realize that for himself, but that didn't stop me from using his ideas for the business. He was still trying to find his way, a little too quickly in my opinion since the Pharaoh had departed from our world, but his ideas were as sound as they came. He was a good grandson, and his friends had grown into equally good people, each and every one of them. They kept me young at heart.

"Nyuhhh. Hey Gramps'" Joey drawled from the other end of the phone, as if just thinking about him had summoned him into the receiver. He sounded off. A little panicked, I'd say.

"Joey." I greeted my former student, though unlike Yugi I suspected there were still things I could teach Joey if he ever became my pupil again. He was yet another young man who had yet to find his way. I supposed this was the right age for self-discovery and missteps. "This isn't your usual number." I noted. Joey had a habit of either breaking his phones or coming back to find them broken if he left them in his apartment for too long. I couldn't change the life he had at home, but I could give him somewhere else to be when it all became too much. Perhaps this was one of those days. It would explain the strange number.

"Let's get him top-side and I'll call our physician. You can carry him, right?" Came a second voice, muffled by distance but easy enough to make out. It was younger, higher pitched. It sounded familiar.

"Y-yeah, no problem." Came Joey's reply, speaking to his companion rather than to me I gathered as the angle of his voice shifted back toward his friend.

"Alright, good." The younger boy replied, casually.

"Seein' how chill you are 'bout all this is kinda freakin' me out." Joey told him and then the phone buffeted against his cheek, making a soft 'bumf' as he shifted something heavy around.

It was the younger of the Kaiba brothers, I realized. That was the other voice. He seemed like a good boy, despite that horrible piece of work he had for an older brother. I'd learned the hard way with my own children that youngsters needed strong, fully present and sensible role models to grow into well rounded adults and Mokuba Kaiba had drawn a short straw there.

"Sorry 'bout that Gramps." Joey was speaking to me again now, his voice clearer as his mouth aligned with the phone properly. "Yug' and I are, nyuhhhhh-"

"-Mind his head." Mokuba noted.

"-He's like a freakin' rag doll!" Joey protested quickly before returning his attention to the conversation. "So I know Yug' has like a shift at the store later, but nyuhhh..." There was a long pause as Joey seemed to be deciding what to say. "He's sick!"

"Oh? Yugi is sick?"

The way Joey blurted it out made me doubtful and Yugi was too dutiful a grandson to be trying to escape work without a good reason.

"Wait. No. He's not sick, he's...nyuhhh." Joey hummed from the other end of the line.

"Oh wow. You're _really_ bad at lying." Mokuba's tone was dead-pan and unimpressed.

"Shhhhhhhhhushhhhh!" was hissed back.

"Joey." I began, making sure I had his full attention before continuing.

"Uh, yea?" He sounded nervous. Good. That meant he at least knew what a bad job he was doing of this.

"Why are you with Mokuba Kaiba. Where are you? Just be honest now." Saving him from having to think up another lie was probably the best thing I could do for him. Telling them wasn't his greatest strength.

"Ok, so!" Joey took a deep inhalation of breath, as though he were about to dive down to the bottom of a swimming pool, or in this case, this conversation."Me n' Yug' went over to the Kaiba place t'talk te Mokuba cos' Kaiba like, went into the afterlife to duel Atem' or somethin' and hasn't come back yet. Then the evil cube-thing started glowin' an Yug's head lit up with that weirdo third eye thing an he' just folded t'the floor like a freakin' towel. Or 'e would'a done if I hadn't caught 'im! Usually the Millennium Items just glow fer a second and then are like, done. But this ain't one a' those times! Yug's totally outta it but his forehead keeps on glowin' and the cube's doin' it too so... uh. It's not good."

"I see." I stroked my beard as I worked through all the different details, half marveling at the strange world my grandson and his friends seemed to have built for themselves, and half envious of it. To be young again. Well I definitely couldn't shave my beard now. What else would I have left to fiddle with as I contemplated the strangeness of life. We were just lucky my daughter-in-law was half a world away cruising with my son to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Had she been here still then there would have been hell to pay. "Well now, how long has it been since Yugi collapsed?" I finally answered, breaking the suspense and releasing Joey's obviously baited breath.

There was a woosh of breath as he replied; "Like, ten minutes-"

"-Twenty two minutes" The younger Kaiba corrected.

"Like, twenty two minutes." Joey corrected. "Y'wanna add in the seconds and nanoseconds too?" He quipped to Mokuba who remained silent from what I could hear but must have done something to reply as Joey snickered a second later. "Nyehehe. Real classy, kid." He added.

"That's not very long." I pondered aloud. The frequency of these sorts of going on and of course having my own soul stolen by Pegasus kept me calm. "If he hasn't woken up in a few hours it'll be time to call the hospital, but for now if he's in a safe place then he can stay there." I decided.

"Yer!" Joey agreed, enthusiastically. "Like I said, were at the Kaiba place so s'all good. They've got like fifty spare rooms or somethin'."

I could hear that Joey hadn't understood exactly what I meant. The Kaiba mansion was not necessarily a 'safe place' in my book.

"He'll be _fine_ here." Mokuba added a little sullenly. Apparently he'd been able to hear both sides of the conversation and could read between the lines.

"Alright then." I agreed, relying on the boy's word to be the truth. "If Yugi wakes up then call me. If he doesn't then call me anyway in a couple of hours." I concluded.

"Y'got it, Gramps!" Joey, muffling a little again as the soft 'bumf' of something soft but weighted being moved around repeated itself; which I now knew to be my unconscious grandson.

I shook my head as I replaced the phone on the receiver and returned to the Bonebreaker, otherwise known as the chair we used with the computer desk in the living room. Arthur had been rereading through his translation notes and shuffled them back into an orderly pile as the camera on Yugi's laptop recorded my approach. These video chats with the Skype were truly marvelous.

"Is everything alright, Solomon?" He questioned, taking a good look at my face.

I chuckled. "Oh yes-" and then shook my head in an exaggerated disbelief. "-You wouldn't believe the mischief these boys get into."

**Yugi**

Gozaburo Kaiba had been shorter than Kaiba was when we'd seen him in Virtual World but in Kaiba's memories he towered over his adopted son, almost as if he was size of Exodia Necross itself.

"Kaiba Corporation is pleased to announce its new partnership with Ito Technologies." Kaiba was wearing a completely white school uniform that looked familiar and subtly ducked away from his step-father to put distance between them, even while he was in the middle of giving a speech at his side.

Without a glance he sidestepped Gozaburo and reached out to shake the hand of a well dressed middle aged man I didn't recognize who was stood beside them in a grey pinstripe suit. The hand shake was overly long and clearly more for show than anything else. The cameras flashed as they held the gesture still for a moment, letting everyone get their chance to take a photograph, I guessed, before Kaiba pulled back out of it.

It looked like they were at a press conference with a sea of faces watching them as the three stood together at the speaker's podium. They were just far enough away that the audience probably couldn't make it out as the older Kaiba subtly reached out to grab Kaiba and pulled at his shoulder until there was a gross hollow crunching sound, but from where I was standing behind them it sent a shiver down my spine.

"This partnership represents a new wave of initiatives to streamline the-" Kaiba had to pause his speech half way through and sucked in air through his teeth as it happened.

His expression didn't change, except maybe for just half a second, but even after that flicker of pain passed he didn't resume talking. He stood there blankly staring out across the room for just long enough for the people in the crowd to start to murmuring among themselves. How had no one else noticed it? Some started whispering and fidgeting but no one moved. I guessed the presentation was something to do with the old KaibaCorp. That would make sense given how the audience was acting - all just expectantly waiting for Kaiba to continue. Everyone watching quieted down again as Gozaburo leaned down to his son.

"Suck it up, boy." He whispered into his ear, even as his big hands squeezed down on Kaiba's shoulders. He dug his fingers into them, at a glance looking like a proud dad resting his hands on his son's shoulders - reassuring him even - until you noticed that Kaiba's lips were pressed together so hard they'd gone white and all the color had drained from his face.

Kaiba began again, his tone a little strained but not enough to carry over the podium microphone. "-to streamline the production funnel of our tanks and aircraft."

"You're useless to me one armed so you better learn to deal with it." The older Kaiba smirked nastily into his ear.

Kaiba didn't miss a beat. He kept going with his presentation as if everything was normal and all of this was perfectly fine. "A full press release detailing the innovations and changes to our current assembly line practices will be made available to the media by the end of the quarter."

"Leave him alone!" I shouted, but they couldn't hear me. That was starting to become normal.

Ever since the very first memory of Kaiba in the orphanage I hadn't been able to interact with him in any of the others and that might have been a good thing.

In the second one Gozaburo Kaiba had nearly drowned him in a farmyard trough. In that one I'd actually taken Kaiba's place in the memory, which was strange and became really scary as Gozaburo held me down. I'd come back out of that room soaking wet and Yami had sort of laughed at me a bit... until he found out why. Then he'd been angry. The memory in the third room I'd been just forced to witness... It'd been really disturbing and just too weird for me to feel comfortable getting involved in. I'd had to look away as Kaiba's step-father made him watch him do that to that poor lady, and getting dragged along to watch Kaiba just sit blank-faced in a washroom with the lights off and not move afterwards was even worse. I couldn't get out of there fast enough when Mokuba's Blue-Eyes card finally reacted to the door.

This place was like a slideshow presentation of my parent's vacation photos - except the opposite. Instead of every scene being full of happily smiling people every memory was harsh and spiteful.

Kaiba's presentation ended in front of me and he turned to make an exit until Gozaburo stopped him with a hand around his wrist.

"Leaving so quickly, boy? Don't want to cozy up to the investors? It is your initiative, after all." It sounded like a taunt from the way he said it.

"I'll leave that to you." Kaiba countered, dead pan as he snatched his hand back. "My arm hurts. I must've slept on it funny."

For some reason that made his step-father grin, darkly, there was only evil in the expression. "Good." He approved with a nod. "Get out of my sight."

I trailed after Kaiba as he casually sauntered away from the podium and towards a door at the back of the stage. It opened up into a long white corridor with fluorescent lights that buzzed and hummed and as soon as he got into it Kaiba put on a burst of speed and threw himself at one of the doors. Even one handed he yanked it open so hard the door handle chipped the wall as it swung outward.

This was the first memory that Kaiba had really moved around in so I jogged after him and snuck in through the door as it finally stopped swinging on its hinges. I didn't know what would happen if I lost Kaiba while inside of one of his memories but I didn't want to chance it.

It was definitely a dressing room, or some kind of pre-presentation preparation area. The movie-star style giant mirrors on the wall and half-filled water cooler gave it away. Kaiba took three paces into the middle of the space and then threw himself into one of the pale mauve sofas, waving his left arm around and pulling at his shoulder into it seemed to click back into place. The sound alone made me wince, and that was even without Kaiba's gritty expression.

With his shoulder fixed he bolted back upright.

For a second he just stood completely still and fumed. His hands clenched into sharp fists that shook slightly, I guessed with rage. Then he just started kicking things. Anything. Everything. He kicked the couch so hard it toppled over and flipped the coffee table that had been next to it sending a couple of magazines and cups half way across the room. I was glad he couldn't see or touch me as he slammed right through my body to launch the side table behind me against the opposite wall and it looked like he was gearing up to smash the mirrors until there was a knock on the door. It was loud and purposeful even though the door to the room wasn't actually closed - just ajar.

"I'm entering." Stated a firm voice.

The unfamiliar man from the stage came through the door and closed it behind him. After everything he must have heard smashing and breaking in the corridor I thought he was crazy for coming into the room. He didn't even react to the warzone Kaiba had turned the place into - instead his bright green gaze just fixated on Kaiba.

"Mr. Ito" Kaiba acknowledged - because really there hadn't been enough warmth there for it to have counted as a greeting. It was like all of his previous rage was quickly stomped back down and hidden away as Kaiba watched the man through sharp cold eyes stroll over to one of the seats and turn it the right side up. It didn't change the fact the room still looked like a tornado had blown through it.

"Mr. Kaiba." He replied smoothly. With a heave he righted one of the seats and settled into the armchair he'd rescued so he could calmly watch Kaiba from it.

Kaiba's poker face morphed into a mean scowl as the man's next words were said.

"I saw what happened to your arm." 'Mr. Ito' offered, casually glancing around the remains of the furniture with interest.

"Tch! Whatever ever you think you 'saw', nothing happened." Kaiba's back went straight as a rod as he snapped back "You're just seeing things."

The look Mr. Ito gave Kaiba was weird.

It was overly neutral, like he was trying not to give something away. I recognized it. It was an expression I sometimes caught on the faces of older guys eyeing up Téa when we were hanging out a Burger World or Kaiba Land, especially during the summer. If I made eye-contact with any of them they'd always quickly look away, like they didn't want to be caught. It always made me feel a little defensive. This was the first time I'd ever seen that same sneaking glance aimed at a guy, instead of Téa in a miniskirt or a cute sundress.

Kaiba must have mistaken it for doubt.

"Hypothetically, if something did happen, it would be between me and my father - so none of your business." He added, crossing his arms, leaning back a bit even though he wasn't super tall yet and narrowing his eyes in a way that he clearly intended to look threatening.

Ito snapped out of it.

"Is that so?" It wasn't really a question, and everyone in the room knew it.

"Yes." Kaiba sneered.

Then they just stared at each other.

Ito hesitated for a second before he decided to carry on the conversation, even though Kaiba clearly was trying to make doing that as difficult as possible for him.

"Mr. Kaiba" He began with, fishing around in his suit jacket for something. "You're of course aware of my reputation?" Out of it he pulled a thin silver flask, the sort I'd only ever seen in old detective shows and historical movies. "The one your father despises me for." He added, uncapping it and taking a swig before stowing it back away again.

Kaiba's eyes watched the flask like a hawk for every moment that it was in sight. "That you got caught doing stuff with a minor, you mean?" I couldn't tell if the disapproval in Kaiba's voice was because of the drink, or the topic.

I couldn't imagine Kaiba partnering up with someone who'd be dangerous to kids these days, especially with how family-friendly the Kaibacorp brand was now. Even in this memory his dislike of the man was obvious, but his step-father was still alive so maybe he'd had no other choice.

"Yes." Ito noted. There was a bit of regret in his tone but even so that didn't make up for doing bad stuff to kids. "That incident ruined Ito Tech - drove it into the ground." He added wistfully. There was a break as he contemplated Kaiba, watching him thoughtfully, while Kaiba just glared back icily. "Your proposed partnership is the first step on the road to redeeming me and my company's reputation-" he was interrupted by a sharp scoff of contempt. Ito recovered smoothly, raising his voice a little to continue talking over the spiteful sound. "-I know I wasn't your first choice but this opportunity is significant to me, and I wanted to let you know that."

"Great." Kaiba sarcastically replied, totally unimpressed by all of this even as he crossed his arms a little tighter. "Now I know."

Ito shook his head in amusement. He stood up and smoothed down his suit before offering "If the time ever came for a... change of leadership in KaibaCorp - know that Ito Tech would support you, in whatever your next business venture might be."

Kaiba didn't react to the words one way or another. For a few seconds neither of them moved at all and Ito just seemed happy to stand there and look at Kaiba the same way he had earlier. I guess Kaiba felt there was something weird about it too as he demanded "Is that it?"

Ito cleared his throat. "Yes, that's it."

With a final glance he threaded his way around all the destruction back to the door and moved through it, pulling the door back ajar as he did.

"Urgh." Kaiba grunted with disgust, loosening his arms now that he was alone in the room again and gritting his teeth.

The card in my pocket finally reacted and the damage done to the door started to fade away under Blue-Eyes' light like the others had done. I grabbed the handle and passed through it back into the strange hallway of Kaiba's soul room, pulling until the door was fully closed and trying to give that room's Kaiba privacy as he moved over to the sink and began vigorously scrubbing at his hands.

Knowing just how much Kaiba would hate me seeing all of these things made me feel guilty, so if I had to be here then I at least wanted to achieve something. Yami seemed pretty confident that the doors just needed to be closed and that was what was happening, but just standing around witnessing this stuff wasn't helping anyone, especially not Kaiba.

"Well, at least you're not wet this time." Yami noted, sounding mildly amused.

He couldn't come into the corridor - or more like he couldn't step out of his current room - but it didn't stop him leaning against the door frame and keeping an eye on me. It felt great to have him watching my back again like this - adding in his own comments where he saw fit and occasionally busting out cool one liners, just like he'd done when we'd shared our thoughts. It was like no time had passed and we'd never been apart. The nostalgia hit me hard.

"Heh, yeah." I grinned back, awkwardly scratching at the back of my head.

Once we got Kaiba back to our dimension I wanted to talk to him about this Yami hologram... but I didn't know what I wanted to say just yet. A lot of my feelings were mixed up and it wouldn't do me any good to barge into a conversation with Kaiba about it until I figured them out first.

"You're doing well." Holographic or not, being praised by him was still the best feeling. "I think you should try sealing that one next." Yami advised, pointing one of his - my- our fingers towards a slightly roughed up door behind me and jolting me out of that funk.

I didn't doubt him for a second, but I still asked "How come?" anyway.

"Sounds have started coming from it" Yami explained, eyeballing it from the doorway curiously as a tongue of ooze inched towards it across the floor.

"Oh yeah?" I scratched my chin "What sort of sounds?" I guessed it was nothing that bad given how casual Yami was acting, but better to be prepared, right?

He blinked thoughtfully at me before slowly replying. "Like things being moved around, and opened and closed." That could be the sound of a whole bunch of things, but at least it wasn't an angry dragon roar. Yami rolled his shoulders in a small shrug and I shrugged back.

"Ok then, you got it Partner." I called out to him as I turned to the next recommended door and put my hand around the knob and walked inside, readying Blue-Eyes between my fingers just in case.

The first thing that hit me was the smell of burning bread.

I was relieved to see that it was a pre-Gozaburo memory. The room beyond the door was the kitchen of an apartment, attached to a living room area that I couldn't really get a good look at from this angle. Everything was a jumble. Dirty plates were all over the counters and they chimed as the shape of someone picked the stacks up and put them back down again as if checking to see if there was something under them. There was half washed cutlery thrown in the sink, a thin layer of dust on all of the pots and pans and a pile of microwavable meals poking out of the trash can. The only place the mess didn't touch was a small household shrine in the back of the living room where a photograph of a woman with her face-blurred out was standing. The missing facial features made it sort of eerie to look at. I doubted the photo really looked like that back whenever this was.

A tall thin salaryman was rushing around the little space with a phone nestled in the crook of his shoulder, wearing a suit that was the right length but buttoned up too loosely, like he'd lost a lot of weight recently. He startled as the toaster popped and swore at it before snatching up the toast and tossing it onto a plate he hastily rescued from the overstuffed dishwasher, trapping his tie in the machine as he slammed it shut and almost strangling himself by accident when he tried to march away without noticing. He freed himself, briskly walking to the kitchen table and dropping the plate of toast down on it with a noisy 'thunk' that made the man jump.

"Eat, Seto." He tiredly ordered the pair of curious blue eyes seated at the table as he stormed around the little space again.

Kaiba was a kid again this time, even younger than he had been in the orphanage. Despite that he didn't look too much different, besides having a messy bird's nest of hair instead of his usual style. He maybe looked down at the toast for two or three seconds before going back to reading a book propped open against the clutter on the kitchen table, sneaking glances at the man roaming around the kitchen as he did so. Noticing that the kid wasn't doing what he wanted the salaryman moodily cut back across to the little table, forcibly shutting the book in front of Kaiba's face and pointing a finger back at the plate of toast.

It seemed a bit passive aggressive, but Kaiba didn't think anything of it, and the picture of a flight of dragons on the book's front cover made me smile. Kaiba and his dragons.

He nibbled a corner of toast for a few seconds, just until he wasn't being paid attention to anymore and then dropped it back on the plate, instead watching the man I guessed was his biological dad as if he was a fascinating kids TV show.

The man paused in his stride, not paying 'Seto' any attention as he straightened his tie and smoothed down his suit before just zoning out right there on the spot in front of his son, staring at nothing. Now that he was standing still I could see him better. He looked like he might have been half-foreign and had Mokuba's more tanned complexion with dull grey eyes which looked exhausted and hollow. They stayed empty even as he eventually snapped out of his daydream and glanced down at his young son.

"Did you brush your hair today?" He questioned, clearly knowing the answer was 'no' based on how Kaiba looked but his question came out despairing and defeated.

"Yes." Kaiba replied back, staring his dad down point blank as though daring him to argue even though he was just a kid.

The man sighed deeply and instantly gave in.

"Have you seen my keys?" he asked next.

Kaiba shook his head as he watched his dad circle around the kitchen again. "I can't be late for this interview, Seto. Do you understand me?" he pressed desperately.

"I haven't seen them!" Kaiba insisted, sounding righteously offended by the accusation and a little bit squeaky at this age. The salaryman cursed under his breath as a high pitched cry came from somewhere I couldn't see. His face scrunched up like it was the worst sound in the world but beyond that didn't react at all.

"Go check on your bother." He eventually murmured, before going back to his search.

Kaiba actually did what he was asked this time. He jumped down from the table and wandered over through the living area out of sight to investigate the noise.

"What's wrong, Mokie?" I could just about hear through the wall and Mokuba's crying instantly softened at his brother's question. I wanted to follow after Kaiba, but paused to watch as their dad suddenly stopped looking for the keys and did something new. He used their distraction as his chance to pop some kind of pill from a kitchen draw high above the rest.

"Kuro scratched me." A little Mokuba somewhere in the next room whined softly. A chubby black cat that looked like it was the best fed thing in the whole house streaked out of the brothers' room and into the kitchen behind me before I even had to wonder who 'Kuro' was.

Kaiba led the tiny Mokuba out of the room by his hand and into the living room so he could grab a paper tissue from a tissue box balanced badly on top of a stack of TV guides and handed one over to his little brother, who at this age was pretty much just big purple eyes and a mop of dark hair. Kaiba pressed a second sheet against a thin scratch on Mokuba's hand and then turned his attention to the clock on the kitchen wall and frowned at it with an intense focus.

"You're already late." Kaiba concluded proudly, beaming at his dad.

"Yes, I know that!" The man snapped back, not even looking at Kaiba as he rifled through the kitchen draws and definitely not seeing the way his son's gleefully expression instantly sank into sour disappointment.

I felt bad for him.

"You should stay home and play with me and Mokie." Kaiba decided, tilting his head to one side in a way I'd never seen our Kaiba do and smiling with a mischievous wonky grin. That me smile a bit even as Kaiba's dad ignored him and stuck his head into the kitchen cabinets and then the microwave. Why would the keys even be in there? It sort of looked like he'd just gone into a searching frenzy and wasn't really thinking about things anymore.

"No, Seto." he scolded tiredly, like he'd heard the suggestion too many times before. "I'm leaving, just as soon as I find my keys." echoed his voice, muffled from inside of the cabinets. "Auntie will be over in twenty minutes, then you can play with Hayate."

Kaiba scowled at that news, his eyes glancing across the room to glare at a photograph of a brown-haired woman posing with her Akita.

"I don't wanna play with Hayate! Dogs are bullies! He chases Kuro!" Kaiba objected. One of the ears of the black cat now lounging on the kitchen window sill flicked at his name but apart from that the cat ignored them all. "Can't you just stay? You're already twenty-three minutes late." Kaiba repeated insistently.

There was a bit of a pause.

"Dad?" Kaiba called back over his shoulder, his expression quickly becoming a broody frown as he didn't get a response. He trotted back over to his dad's side with Mokuba in tow and tugged on the leg of his pants for attention, hovering close to him. The next part almost happened in slow motion as the man pulled his head out of the microwave and without pausing yanked at the handle of the refrigerator he was standing in front of, which flew open and smacked Kaiba squarely in the forehead to knock him to the floor.

"Seto!" His dad bellowed at him as he rubbed his head, not in concern, but in a burst of anger. Mokuba looked at them both with eyes as big as saucers while Kaiba just stared back up at him, watching as his dad's furious expression fell into abrupt panic and then slipped into looking ashamed. I didn't know if Kaiba was old enough to understand all of those emotions but he lowered his hand away from his forehead slowly anyway, as if afraid he'd be shouted at again if he moved too quickly. There was a trail of red across his miniature palm and his dad's eyes went wide at the sight. Kaiba didn't seem to realize there was any problem at all, so I guess it didn't hurt, until he followed his dad's eyes down to his own palm and noticed the blood. He glanced back upwards unsurely, waiting for his dad's response.

"Seto, don't cry." the man sputtered, looking panicked. His pupils shrank as they darted around the room like he was looking for an emergency escape exit. "Don't cry, okay?" he repeated.

Kaiba didn't seem to be in pain but as soon as his dad reacted so strongly a flash of very adult-looking calculation went through his eyes before he scrunched them up and loudly burst into crocodile tears. From behind him Mokuba copied his older brother's example and sincerely echoed Seto's false tears by breaking out into heart-felt wails to match his brother's.

The flustered man glanced between his two young and crying sons and went still, even while his eyes darted about in alarm.

"I'm sorry!" he sputtered, shouting to make himself heard over the two brothers. He fled to the front door, snatching up a briefcase and his car keys on his way over. He wrenched it open and then slammed it shut behind him, the whole motion strangely slowed down in Kaiba's memory.

As soon as the door closed on them and the footsteps from the other side got more distant Kaiba instantly stopped crying and wiped away his tears, which made Mokuba do the same. Then he scowled at the door in a way that was very reminiscent of his older self and pulled out a pair of house keys from the pocket of his jeans. The missing keys, I guessed.

I couldn't help it, but I had a weird feeling about this memory.

It wasn't as mean as any of the others had been, and Kaiba wasn't anxious or sick like the first one in the orphanage. He seemed sulky, more than anything as he guiltlessly tossed his dad's keys into the dirty water in the sink. Not knowing why this memory was here somehow made all of this way worse, like something really terrible was about to happen.

I was pretty relieved to seal it up and follow their dad out through the front door back into the hallway with Yami... until I noticed the Kaiba brothers were the same age in the funeral that was behind the very next broken door.

**An** **dr** **o** **Sphinx**

Sphinx Teleia panted as she paced while shouting and screaming, sweat collecting where her host's heavy breasts met and strained against the thin linen barrier of her robe.

"How can this be! What will it take to destroy them?"

The branch swayed beneath my weight as I landed to perch upon it. Below me she continued to make a spectacle of herself in rage as with each passing moment the chance of Fissure having killed our foes grew fainter and fainter with the lack of a Death Counter's appearance. The conclusion was obvious.

"You have failed to kill them again, Teleia." I noted. Burying them below the earth had not been a terrible plan, but it had nevertheless backfired. Our quarry had escaped once more with their respective lives.

"Be silent!" She forced one eye open to hatefully behold me while the other remained tightly closed as Teleia pulled at her host's hair and ranted and raved. "I will have them yet! I vow it! I will not disappoint the Master!"

"Calm yourself." Her shrieking tried my patience. "Though dropping the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba through the earth has not earned them a second death the damage inflicted to both could still aid our cause." I reasoned. Truly Sphinx Teleia was unworthy of being my Master's servant if she could not conclude even that much on her own.

Her conniption quieted and Teleia slowly straightened, releasing the priestess's hair from her grip as she considered my words. Even without her pestilent yowling she failed to catch her breath and her host's chest heaved with exhaustion. Clawing at thick gold band around her waist and forcing it from her body alleviated this. The circlet rolled away as she crushed the neckline of her robe beneath her fingernails and shredded the fabric with a loud rip. Teleia was not finished. With viciousness she yanked the priestess's garb away from her skin as though fighting it for room to breathe and released the now misshapen robe. It cascaded back over her host's body in light waves, torn and soiled.

Her host body was her greatest asset, yet Teleia in her ponderous stupidity paid it no mind. The priestess's clothes were now destroyed. Her hair was tattered. A mixture of dirt both necrotic and not stained the side of her face. Teleia would likely kill her host if she continued this way.

Such an arrangement suited me. Teleia was a gluttonous fool and deserved to become the victim of her own carelessness, yet my host disagreed. Though ever calm and subdued I felt Mahad's foreign concern for her body leak into my thoughts. He lessened it, as though there was something he would rather not reveal to me fueling its fires. I did not care so I did not pry.

Not while there was information more useful to my purposes.

Had Teleia permitted her host greater sentience she would have been privy to the priestess's wisdom, as I was Mahad's. Instead by denying her and binding her in silence Teleia remained ignorant to the valuable knowledge of her host. And of great value it was. Mahad's memories revealed to me his understanding of our current location and the source of the Pharaoh's distraction. Though he knew little about the caves the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba had escaped into like rats he knew much of the oasis beyond and the pathways leading to it. He could anticipate where they would emerge.

This insight was now mine and mine alone.

"You must finish this, before the Master awakens and learns of your abject failure." I observed with finality. "Then your fate will be sealed." Teleia paled, no longer able to muster her usual hungry bluster. Whatever torture the Master had inflicted upon us in the past would be nothing in the face of another defeat at the Pharaoh's hands. It was a fact we both knew. I spread my wings wide and sailed away from her and the stench of her desperation knowing that she would not find them. She did not know where to look. I did. It was near pleasing.

The wind was my aid as I made my way though the air, flying a great distance away from Sphinx Teleia. My host's intuition served me well as the roaring of water crashing down upon itself marked its as Mahad's target.

The yellow and red rocks of the canyon parted from their narrow pathway and spread wide. The reveal was splendid. A paradise more fanciful than anywhere else I had yet to fly over in this world of souls shone below me like the jewels of a crown. Sapphire blue waters, flanked by an emerald green shoreline teeming with the lushest of plants and palms, all embraced by white gold sand unsullied and untouched by mortal feet. The ruddy red stones of the canyon enclosed the gleaming oasis with protective walls, shielding it from all points of ingress but that of a single winding track carved between jagged rock faces. The unyielding natural barrier featured an opening a great distance upward; water spilling from the mouth of a mighty cave that overlooked the vista to create a waterfall of such height and majesty I had never known.

Noises echoed from the cavern's depths as I flew closer to its shadowy maw. They drew me and I found a new perch upon a rocky outcropping that gave me a well veiled view of the cave mouth.

Heavy splashes and the scraping of claws against stone heralded them into my view as the silver beast that had become of Seto Kaiba pounced free of the cave's darkness and lurched to a stop that nearly unseated the Pharaoh upon his back as they arrived at the waterfall's edge. I felt my host become attentive to my comings and goings once more as his beloved Pharaoh and the reincarnation of the High Priest he privately called his friend met our gaze.

"Do you believe me now?" The Pharaoh questioned with amusement before casting his gaze outward. Despite his steady words his manner stirred my host's concern once more. The Pharaoh's cheeks were unnaturally reddened with heat even while his body shivered as though cold.

Seto Kaiba huffed in reply. He appeared to think nothing of it.

It was with reverence that the Pharaoh did survey the view sprawling before him in every direction, while his mount merely snorted again and craned his head over the precipitous drop he now stood before as the water rushed between his talons to throw itself over the cliff and into the oasis below. He scoffed through his muzzle and slowly raised up his wings.

"Kaiba. Don't do it." the Pharaoh cautioned tonelessly over the roar of the waterfall before them. "There must be a better way down."

Seto Kaiba tilted his head to the side and sneered back at the Pharaoh, his maw pricking upwards at the edges. The narrowing of his eyes and flashing of fangs was different to a normal beast's and it was Mahad who corrected me. The magician estimated the expression the dragon wore was not a baring of teeth, but a mischievous smirk. Under the circumstances, my host found that even more questionable and the Pharaoh's mistrustful expression echoed his champion's sentiment.

" _Don't do what?"_ The dragon cooed back, the monstrous tone lilting and nearly playful. I did not understand the meaning of his grunts and growls, yet somehow my host did.

"You'll kill yourself if your wing fails." The Pharaoh told him without a doubt, haughtily crossing his arms as he did so. "We're too high up. Even diving from this height would be foolhardy."

A deep hum reverberated from Seto Kaiba's chest and he nodded along with a dipping of his head as though agreeing, even while his talons inched toward the rim of the tunnel's mouth and curled around it firmly.

" _Correction: 'Us', I'll kill 'us'. Get it right, Pharaoh."_ He grunted and then shook the birds resting beside me from their nests with a boisterous bellowing roar that he threw at the clouds above in challenge.

"Kaiba!" A moment to right himself and secure his legs around the dragon's middle was all Seto Kaiba allowed the Pharaoh before lunging cat-like from the mouth of the cave and into the open sky; his rider's jaw clenching and eyes going wide as he did so.

The sun branded his wings bright white as he opened them wide and caught the wind effortlessly, easily beating them to soar on an updraft of warm air as though he had been born with wings upon his back and not only just acquired them. Even to one such as me who knew nothing of these boys, the dragon's joy was obvious. His mouth curled in glee and a sound that may once of been deep laughter echoed from the depths of his throat as the monster threw his head back and barked many times with amusement. Atop his back the Pharaoh chuckled, intuitively smoothing his body to sit flat against the monster's back as the beast tested himself, flying a circle around the oasis like a victorious charioteer and experimentally spinning and rolling in mid air for the apparent pleasure of it.

I could feel the smile of my host as he watched, though it did not break through my lips. Seto Kaiba spiraled through the air toward the oasis, pulling up at the last moment to fly just a hair's width above the water's surface. The Pharaoh's chuckles became true laughter every bit as loud and mirthful as his mount's as he leaned over the side of the beast's back to run his fingers through it, creating a long wake in the otherwise calm stillness of the oasis as Seto Kaiba flew its length. Seeing the two of them get along pleased Mahad. I did not know why.

Seto Kaiba pivoted in the air abruptly, climbing back up high into the sky with a pounding of his wings and between wing beats the Pharaoh's expression softened from hardy enjoyment to a warm and gentle delight as he watched the dragon beneath him perform and rollick in the sky. His featured sharpened into a smirk of pleasure, hiding the gentler face as Seto Kaiba's pale neck twisted around to glance back at the Pharaoh as if to briefly check on the boy astride his back. Or taunt him. Seeing his rider's confidence the dragon put on a burst of speed to fly a knot in the air, the Pharaoh beginning to laugh once more as the aerial feat turned him upside-down for but a moment.

Watching them... was strange.

Here, like this, it was difficult to wish them the ill will necessary to destroy them. I wondered if that had been my host's intent.

I ruffled my feathers and settled down more comfortably onto my ledge. Let them them cavort and frisk. For now I would merely watch. My patience may yet be rewarded. Once they were tried from playing they may settle again and deliver to me an opportunity in which to strike out against them. It was an outcome worth waiting for.

The dragon's eyes slide back to his passenger once more for just a moment before he curled around himself to draw a second loop in the sky and then a third as the Pharaoh's clear enjoyment of the ride vindicated his antics. Abruptly the sounds of Seto Kaiba's baying guffaws deepened into a wordless questioning growl.

The odd noise attracted my host's attention and a spike of fear speared through his heart as the Pharaoh's face slackened.

His hold on his mount grew lax.

Within but a second he slid from the beast's pale back and plummeted limply through the air toward the earth below.


	21. Chapter 21

**Kaiba**

This was flying. This, and nothing else.

My jet was quicker, but the wind didn't sting my skin or howl in my ears from inside the cockpit. My airship had been more comfortable and could sustain higher altitudes for longer but to hell with comfort! The feeling of the air through Blue-Eyes' scales; the strong rhythm of it's heart in my chest pumping in time to my wing beats as I climbed higher into the sky; it was damn near godly. The muscles still felt alien and they ached with the effort but it was a good burn, like the afterglow of an intense workout. Even with holograms I'd never recapture this feeling. It was a shot of pure adrenaline - the boost so overwhelming it wiped out everything else in existence. I couldn't even feel Atem on my back anymore, though I could hear him chuckling as if he was in the seat behind me on a roller coaster.

He had no business being that stupidly short while also having a voice that deep.

His laughter carried over the wind and my own growl of amusement. The tone was much richer than I'd been able to replicate with my AI clone. I listened to it as closely as I could through my dragon's ears, trying to commit the timbre and pitch to memory as one laugh rolled into another. Abruptly the rhythm of it broke. His laughter hitched oddly, climbing in pitch and softness to sound far away and slightly hysterical. I glanced to him on my back.

He looked flushed. The air at this altitude was cold, but drops of sweat still raced down his cheek and dripped from his chin onto the thick folds of the cape that hung across his neck. That wasn't right.

"Atem?"

In pseudo slow-motion his eyelids lowered halfway and his gaze became dull, unfocused. He wavered in place a little, the ridiculous yellow stalks of hair that were so eager to defy gravity swaying with him and then wilting. The pressure of his thighs against my back eased off and his body began to droop like a dying plant. As the final note of his eerie laughter turned silent he slipped from my back like a stringless puppet and fell off of me, straight down through the sky.

My wingspan was too large and my wings were too heavy – I couldn't change their angle in time! He was out of the range of my claws before I could react and the tail of this body was still difficult to control – great for smacking him with, not great for anything that needed any degree of finesse. I ended up lashing him across the forehead with it instead of catching him.

While flying Blue-Eyes' body came with a completely different set of instincts and every single one of them roared at me to stop as I pulled my wings toward my body mid-wing beat and pressed them to my back, streamlining my form. The effect was somewhere between a free-fall and a dive as I plunged vertically down through the air toward the ground, chasing after the purple of Atem's cape as it snarled up his body and hurtled downward. I beat my wings several times to close the distance between us; the thermals that I had used to increase my altitude working against me as I tried to cut through them. With each second I got closer to him as we both got closer to the ground, but unless I could get him to wake up and grab me that was the least of my problems. I shouted at him as I was finally able to stretch out my neck within range, the pissed off roar having no effect. Atem's features remained slack and his half-lidded eyes didn't even twitch despite the wind rushing into them.

Great. Just great!

I snarled to myself, using one last wing beat to angle Blue-Eyes' body against him and within arms length. My dragons were powerful engines of destruction; they weren't built for daintily plucking unconscious dolts out of the sky. My claws scrambled against Atem's chest; trying to hook into the paper-thin fabric of his tunic without sinking into his skin, all while being slapped at by the wind rushing through his stupid cape. That would have made for a much easier target, but clamping down on it might accidentally hang him, or the inertia of grabbing onto it without properly supporting his body could break his spine. My talons floundered, managing to snag a good amount of his tunic and cloak around the neckline before the material shredded against my talons.

Shit! There was no choice left.

Abandoning his clothes I pushed Blue-Eyes' arms under his armpits. I had no way of holding him; not without seriously damaging him with my claws. The bone structure of my dragon's elbow and wrists didn't work the same way as a humans; they moved more like an animals and lacked a lot of the rotation and flexibility needed to keep him braced. There wasn't any other choice. I crushed his body to my own torso, lashed my tail around one of his ankles and clamped my neck around his opposite shoulder to keep him locked in place.

The wind roared through my wings as I opened them as wide as possible, holding them out to slow our decent, catching the currents in them like parachutes. We slowed – substantially, but it was too little too late. We'd already lost too much altitude and gained too much momentum. The ground was rushing up to us.

I was about to find out just how thick Blue-Eye's scales really were!

I coiled my neck and tail tighter and braced.

The impact bent one of Blue-Eyes' wings back on itself and even my most muted yell of pain managed to rip out as a scream. The friction as I collided with the floor was so hot it scalded me; it felt like my fingernails were being yanked off as it flayed the scales from my tail and knocked the breath out of my lungs. I skidded and then lurched and slowly rolled to a stop, cutting a deep trench into the ground behind me like a crater left behind by a meteor strike. All of my muscles twitched in a state of raw agony.

"Arg!"

One wing flailed weakly and only the tip of my tail spasmed as I tried to thrash the length of it around. I couldn't move. Why the fuck couldn't I move?!

My claws twitched a little as they started to go numb, digging into something meaty. Atem moaned, which I guess meant he was still alive by some measure of the word; until I lost all motor control on this body and crushed him to death that is. Pushing him away from me was harder than I thought it would be; all of Blue-Eyes' body was broken and its arms had hardly ever been its strongest feature to begin with. The effort of doing so made my vision turn black and the relief was almost instant...

...

...

...

"...Kaiba... wake-up..." I could feel his breath as Atem murmured against my torso, only half-conscious at best.

"...Gn..."

I didn't remember closing my eyes... I opened them, only enough to squint... there was no point in wasting energy. The sky was orange. It had been blue just a minute ago, and now it was orange. I must have blacked out. That was the only explanation for it.

Something long and dark stretched out across the ground in front of me, loosely hanging over Atem's side. It was wrapped in leather, or PVC or something similar - something glossy enough to reflect the dusky tones of the sunset. On the end was something pale and familiar that twitched at my command.

I was staring at my arm, and my hand.

Blue-Eyes' and me must have separated.

All that power, that freedom, the elation of actually being a real damn dragon was ... gone. Just as I'd been getting into it too... figures. My arm and hand seemed fine, still much in the same condition they'd been in before I got fused; a bit dirty and sliced up but otherwise okay. They didn't look damaged but my Duel Disk still was. It was blinking some warning at me.

The card log obnoxiously mocked me with the news that my Blue-Eyes had been sent to the graveyard, but that wasn't the worst of it.

'Death Counter added.' the readout read.

Of all the stupid bullshit... What a ridiculous way to die.

Moving was currently an unnecessary operation so I didn't bother despite the embarrassment of being remade right where my fused body had previously been. I was lying on the floor parallel to Atem, my arm still draped over his side. He was just inches away from being pressed up against my chest and from being so close I could see beads of sweat form on his forehead and drip down the side of his face and watch his teeth chatter like we were in the arctic circle instead of the desert.

He was staring at me dully, his eyes far from the polished and penetrating ones I was comfortable with. They looked glassy. The flush of red across his cheeks I'd noticed in the tunnels was now a deep blush that his dark skin didn't hide.

"Kaiba." He blinked at me sluggishly.

"What?" I replied testily, my voice still sounding gravelly from being a dragon. He was so out of it. I'd never seen him like this. A little sharpness came back into his eyes, his dim gaze trying to focus on me as I sat up, waiting for him to answer. I was sore, too sore to happily waste my time waiting around for Atem to get around to answering.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I pressed as I watched him slowly close his eyes and grimmace. I didn't bother to put in the additional effort needed to raise my voice. I wasn't sure why I felt I needed to shout in the first place. I didn't like him being so close, that was probably why.

He didn't come up with a reply, instead he just shook feverishly.

I usually wouldn't do this, but he was lying limp on the floor like a dead fish and didn't seem to be capable of lifting up his own head, forget anything else. I slowly moved my hand toward his forehead, giving him ample time to react if he wanted to even if it was just to tell me to knock it off. I lowered it beneath his hairline and felt for his temperature.

"Damn it." He was burning up.

He hummed contentedly as though he'd been presented with an appealing business plan and lazily lifted his hand to cover the one I was pressing against his forehead. I tried not to react at the touch. The difference in our current body temperatures probably made me feel cool against his skin. Instead I exhaled through my teeth and took a look around our surroundings, already knowing this was going to be troublesome as he quivered against the ground in my peripheral vision.

This wasn't something I was equipped for.

Mokuba got sick sometimes but it was rare and he always bounced back quickly. Both of us had strong immune systems. We'd always been the last to catch it and first to recover whenever a bout of flu or some cold went around the orphanage. It'd made us tougher. Beyond that, we were Kaibas. We had instant access to our own private doctor and any medication imaginable, be it illicit or otherwise. All this added up to the inscrutable fact that I was no one's nurse maid.

So what was the priority for a fever? Biologically speaking, shade and proper hydration was always a strong start for any sort of illness, and I suppose if this was Mokuba instead I'd probably tell him to go to bed with a cold compress. A tree beside the bank of the oasis waters made as good a place as any shade-wise, and I could carry Atem that far without any issue if he couldn't walk. He was staring at the sky like he'd never seen clouds before so I guessed that it would be necessary.

"Hey." I snapped my fingers in front of him.

His listless eyes peeled away from the stratosphere and met mine, though he frowned a little to communicate that he didn't like me snapping my fingers at him like a dog, just like my Pharaoh hologram had done.

"I'm gonna pick you up." I told him, clearly. Laying out my intent for him because if he struggled I wasn't sure I wouldn't abruptly recall one of his stupid speeches and drop him out of spite.

He frowned like he was remembering something before opening his mouth and pissing me off. "I'm the Pharaoh, and I forbid you from picking me up." He replied, tone suddenly so level and serious it was as though he was faking the fever.

What? Why? What a dumb thing to be weird about. And he had the nerve to lecture me about being too proud. Bad luck for him though; there was nothing on earth he could have said that would have made me want to pick him up more.

He anticipated that.

Despite his verbal protest, struggling against me was apparently beneath him. I hooked one hand under his knees and the other at his back and lifted. It was easy. Atem weighed almost nothing. He sighed against my neck but otherwise managed not to complain for the twelve steps it took me to set him down by a tree. His head lolled as I propped him up against it. It was weird seeing him so limp. Everything about him was always so poised and angular. 'Regal' was the word, but like hell I'd ever tell him that. Almost so quietly I didn't hear it he moaned in pain and his hand moved to his side to absently ghost his fingers across the spot where the red of his blood had stained the purple of his makeshift belt.

Suddenly I was suspicious of his 'just a cut'.

I smacked his hand away and untied the fabric. He replied with a fuzzy glare of reprimand but no real form of protest. I already knew that the wound was going to be both gross and annoying as the fabric stuck to his side like adhesive tape and I had to tug it to dislodge it. He hissed through his teeth a little as it came away.

"Urgh." The smell alone. "So, 'just a cut' huh?" I sarcastically sneered at Atem.

Turned out he was just as bad at playing nurse maid as I was.

Without the sash to cover it the span of the injury became clear. The cut on his side had half kitted itself together over time but oozed with black pus. The area around it was red and swollen with tiny spider-like veins angrily raised up against the surface of his skin. I felt myself cringe at the sight of the gore. This was Pegasus and his damn disgusting empty eye socket all over again. Why the hell did he have to show me that? Holding my gag-reflex in check I tossed away the cloth with the scab of his infected blood still clinging to it.

It was so disgusting to look at but it explained the fever at least.

"You have an infection." I told him, I wasn't a doctor but I was sure of the diagnosis. "Try dodging next time."

Atem hummed in agreement, half-asleep as he began to fade back into unconsciousness against the tree with his head slumped on his chest. I tapped him on the cheek to keep him awake; several more beads of sweat raced down his forehead and his eyebrows pulsed with irritation as I did so. Fuck him. If I had to be awake and deal with this then he did too. What the hell even happens if you die in your own afterlife? Does the world just disappear with everything in it? Including me? As if I'd just let that happen.

"I'm taking this off." I told him, grabbing the swath of tattered purple fabric around his neck that kept his cape in place. My Blue-Eyes' claws had almost ripped through it anyway. It took only a good grip and a bit of brute force to finish the job as the sweat-soaked fibers came apart at his clavicle. I pushed the two halves of the cloak backwards over his shoulders and it fell away from him to pool dead on the floor.

With the cape cut free I could see he was wearing some sort of golden choker and then a looser necklace that hung above his chest. I'd thought it was all a single piece. How much jewellery did he need? "We get it already, you're a Pharaoh." I muttered, not really expecting him to hear or answer. It would have hardly mattered normally, but I needed to get all this garbage off of him and after lifting the Puzzle over his head I had no idea where to start. I pulled him forward and away from the tree he was resting against to get a better look at the back of his neck, hoping for some sort of latch or fastener for either piece.

"Why are you undressing me?"Atem mumbled, not bothering to open his eyes, just leaning into me and resting his chin on my shoulder like he was thinking of getting comfortable there. I gritted my teeth, not appreciating the suggestion that this situation was somehow in my fucking favor.

"You have a fever. I'm getting all this crap off you so I can bring down your temperature." I bit out as an explanation.

His fingers retreated to rest over his right collarbone and fumbled around for something for a moment, before deciding it was too much effort and delegating the job to me.

"Here." His shivering hand slowly met mine, his still strangely-dark fingers corded around my own and then guided my hand to the space he'd been swatting at ineffectually. He went back to resting against me as I tried to mimic what he had been aiming to do, finding a small catch on the underside of the looser necklace. It came apart with a bit of pressure and I yanked it from his chest. The choker fastened in the same place, though it was a tighter fit to get to the latch and I could feel Atem's carotid artery beat rapidly against my fingers as I tried to work the fastener free.

"Magnificent..." He muttered absently, his adam's apple bobbed against my shoulder as he spoke and I had no idea what he was talking about, or what he even thought was going on right now.

"Kaiba?" He added belatedly, wanting my attention for some reason.

"Just shut up." I countered, hoping to put the next conversation down before it could start.

He hummed in response as I plunged a scrap of his ridiculous cape into the water beside us. The oasis looked clean enough for that. For lack of an actual cold compress a torn up damp rag slapped across his head and neck would have to do. There was a deep sigh of relief as I dropped the wet weight across his forehead, muttering "Hope your tacky tiara is waterproof."

Alright. Now what? I could clean the cut, but treating the surface-level injury wasn't going to be enough. He had an infection so the problem was already inside of his body, probably racing around his bloodstream like a slip n' slide. What he really needed was medicine.

So a card then? If they were determined to occupy the uncanny valley between being my holograms and being actual 'magical' entities that function as described, then maybe one would do the job. It was a stretch, and because we could only play each card once it was also a gamble. If it didn't work each card pulled out of our decks decreased our ability to adapt to future situations – or mitigate future fuck ups. There wasn't a choice. Risky as it was to potentially waste them I was even less keen on my chances of happening by an old timey Egyptian dispensary for a round of antibiotics.

Blue Medicine and Red Medicine were in my deck. They came to mind. Normally I wouldn't have bothered with either of these cards. I only had them to balance out our life points and facilitate playing Green Medicine as part of my original master plan. If they didn't work is was hardly a big loss.

Fine.

Letting him lean against me was easier now that I had a plan in place.

"You're gonna owe me for this, Pharaoh." I told him, seriously.

One of his arms coiled around the back of my neck like a noose to stop his chin slipping off of my shoulder as he absent-mindedly hummed back in reply. That felt weird. I didn't like people touching my head or neck. I had only one barber on staff in the mansion who had the best job security in the whole of Domino because he was the only person I could stand touching my skull. I concentrated on not following up on the instinct to shake Atem's fingers away.

"You were a magnificent dragon." He decided to tell me, emphasizing each word as though it was the most important piece of information in the world to date.

That took me off-guard. I had no idea why but it made me blush and I hated that my body was still capable of doing that without my permission. The only good thing was he was far too out of it to notice.

"Lie down and stop saying stupid things!" I snapped at him. Stupid, and embarrassing things. "You're sick. You're not thinking straight!" I wish he'd hurry up and get his head back together because this whole situation was just surreal. My bones felt like they wanted to jump out of my skin and I had no idea how to quantify that.

"You dare to tell me my own mind?" He countered, raising his voice like he was trying to scold me. He clearly had no idea what was going on right now.

"You're feverish, probably delirious and were unconscious just a minute ago. So yeah," I paused for effect. "I dare." I scoffed and pressed him back down to lie back against the tree by his shoulders. The cloth on his forehead slipped a bit as I did. He caught it and readjusted it back into place with a natural deftness that not even bacterial infection could sap away. His other arm flapped to the wound at his side and he craned his neck a little to get a look at it, like that was going to help.

"Just relax and let me take care of you." I snapped at him. 'This', I should have said 'this'. Why did I say 'you'? That made it sound all personal.

"I didn't know you cared so much, Kaiba." Atem taunted, catching the slip. His jaw weakly twitched into a mocking little grin.

"Tch! I just don't need the thing I'm trying to work on writhing around on the floor like a half-dead rat." I bit back. This is why machines were so much better than people, and why I would always enjoy working with them more. Atem nodded in a barely there inclination of his head and tried to relax back against the tree.

"I play the magic card Blue Medicine" I announced, to apparently no one since Atem was barely coherent at best. The image of the card flashed into the 'played' log on my Duel Disk as a matching green vase identical to the one depicted on the card appeared beside me, along with a crystal cup. It was bigger than I'd thought it would be. The liquid on the card looked like water, but as I poured it out it was a gaudy shade of bright blue. Not water then. I made it a personal philosophy never to drink anything florescent or damn near close to it. I was glad I'd be using this on Atem and not myself.

The medicine sloshed out of the glass as I tried to pour with one hand while keeping the Pharaoh leaning against the tree with the other, having to splay my fingers across his abdomen to keep him in place. I could feel the contours of his surprisingly well-defined abdominal muscles twitch against my fingers through the thin material of his tunic as he wriggled like that was going to throw me off. It was a lame attempt but feeling his six-pack churn under my hand was distracting so I moved my grip to his chin, tilting his head at an angle that seemed about right and resting lip of the glass against his mouth.

"You better swallow this." I threatened, even though he was now unconscious.

If he didn't then blocking an airway was a risk but the human body was an efficient machine and there wasn't a system that I couldn't figure out if I wanted to. I was betting all this would take is the right angle of his mouth in relation to the Medicine and maybe a little extra pressure applied to the throat. The deglutition reflex would kick in to protect the rest if I applied the liquid in small enough increments.

He stirred a little and muttered something incomprehensible but didn't open his eyes.

"Fine." I bit out to myself, irritated at him for not coming around.

I nudged the glass into his mouth and tipped it slightly, trying to send the medicine directly to the back of his throat. True to form he decided to thwart my strategy. The moment the liquid hit his tongue he grimaced at the taste like a fucking child and reflexively coughed it back out into my face.

"You punk!" Gross. I spat onto grass to get the taste out of my mouth. I wished he was awake so I could shout at him more effectively! The stuff tasted awful; like budget cough medicine with a taste deliberately made as vile as possible to stop delinquents from buying it in bulk and getting high. He smirked in his sleep as if aware of just how much of a pain in my ass he was. He wasn't going to get the best of me while he was fucking unconscious.

I threw the potion as far back into his throat as possible and as he opened his mouth to eject it I sealed it shut with my hand. He frowned as I vacuum sealed his big mouth shut and tried to squirm around it, so I grabbed his jaw and tilted his head back to give him no choice and then finally he swallowed the damn stuff.

Looks like it wasn't going to be a waste of a card after all.

Though it was impractical and unhygienic it did the job. The Medicine went to work on gross cut on his side with an immediate effect that seemed like it hurt – or that was the impression I got from his grimace and the fizzy hissing noise. His skin sizzled, a slight smoke that smelt like disinfectant wafting back up at me as it purged his wound and knitted the flesh back together. The angry red swelling around the gash soothed, gradually returning his skin to its natural bronze color that still didn't look totally right, but I was getting used to. Even his expression relaxed, like he actually could have been asleep instead of knocked out.

I'd never seen him unconscious before. It was a strange and obvious thought. Of course I'd never seen Atem unconscious – up until coming to this dimension I'd never 'seen' him at all. All of this was brand new data. Not all of it was useful but I could edit out all the sweat, deep breathing and other symptoms of sickness in my mind and then apply that data to my hologram back in the real world. I sat there next to him watching him twitch in his sleep and was half way through planning out the various algorithms I'd need to control the sleep-awake cycle for the AI, before realizing how moronic the idea was. A dueling hologram didn't need to know how to sleep. What an asinine waste of my mental energy. I had to pay close attention to my thoughts every time the Pharaoh was around or else they spun off on useless tangents like that.

Ironically I was better equipped to diagnose and repair my Pharaoh hologram than I was the real thing.

"This better fix you." I muttered to him.

The Pharaoh groaned quietly and pulled a face in his sleep, muttering something in ancient Egyptian so softly that I didn't catch it.

Despite how obvious it was his body was overheating it was his relentless shivering in my peripheral vision brought me back to the here and now. I would have thrown his cloak back over him but it was covered in dirt and his back sweat and it wasn't going to dry out any time soon - the temperature was dropping too quickly as the sun set. If there was anything half way decent to burn around here I could start a fire with my lighter. I snagged it out of my coat pocket, just to make sure it hadn't been crushed or something equally moronic in the crash. My other hand went for my cigarette case, until something snared my wrist and yanked on it mid-motion.

It looked like white tape.

"What the hell?" I pulled back, trying to get the weird coil off of me. It only constricted tighter and didn't budge. "What _is_ this?" I snapped, turning my wrist to glare at the material wrapped around my arm, making out the fine linen texture and reddish stains lining it even in the twilight. It was a bloody bandage and it stank like death.

Oh great.

She announced herself with a simpering, malicious giggle.

I was on my feet, standing over Atem with one foot on either side of his body ready for whatever this next move was in less than a second. Atem moaned and stirred, shaking his head back and forth but didn't do much other than that - which was best for the both of us while I was straddling him.

"Teleia." I growled without needing a second guess. This was getting boring.

She'd summoned in something new and I had no idea what or when. Curse this wrecked Duel Disk. I fought the fabric shackle ensnaring my wrist, twisting my arm to get out of its hold but instead of breaking free it lurched upwards, dragging me into the air. It lifted me over and away from Atem, further away from the shoreline into a thicket of the oasis's undergrowth and eight more bandages lunged snake-like from the foliage to immobilize me spread eagle in mid air, bound at my wrists and ankles as well as my waist and shoulders. For such a deviant she didn't have much originality.

Teleia fixed me with a lewd stare from beside her new Regenerating Mummy as more loose bindings writhed and undulated around its body, the bandages prehensile like the arms of a squid. I must have been losing my touch if she thought I'd be intimidated by such a pitiful look.

Clearly she had something big in mind, judging by her sadistic cackle. She'd brought her whole entourage too. Both of her Wandering Mummies groaned pathetically and Pyramid Turtle retreated it's scaly head back into its shell while Hieracosphinx screeched behind Sphinx Teleia as it flapped its wings and prowled back and forth like it wanted to eat me alive.

"My my my, I should be thanking you for your kindness-" She didn't look away from me, but she clearly wasn't addressing me either. "-You have led me straight to them." Who the hell was she talking to? There was no one else here. No one I could see. "Now go away. Your delicate sensibilities will not like what I have planned." I wouldn't have figured it out if she hadn't messed up. For just a single second her eyes darted over to a palm a few feet away. The slip-up was so quick she probably hadn't even known she'd made it, but I caught it. She was talking to a fat white bird. I recognized it.

Her monster new distracted me. The wrapping it'd slithered around my shoulders tensed, constricting around my coat collar until it snagged the base of my throat and my senses honed in deliriously on the smell of non-existent leather and the chafe of a cold metal buckle against my neck.

"Once more we meet." Teleia droned, "And I see you've returned to your original body." Her tongue darted out of her sleazy mouth to wet her lips. "How delicious."

"Get this thing off me!" I demanded.

I damn well didn't care that the rough linen was digging into my skin, or that wrestling my hand free and grabbing it made me bleed – the thing coiling around my neck needed to go. Right. Now. I yanked it away from my throat and pulled it apart with every bit of my strength, tearing and shredding apart the tough fibers holding the bandage together with an audible rip.

"Such a strong one. I shall enjoy this more than you know." Teleia cooed appraising me and tapping her finger against her lip as I scowled at her. My throat was off limits – especially to this twisted bitch. She waved her false concern away with a casual declaration. "Fortunately, my Regenerating Mummy is rather... hardy." The frayed linen shackle I'd torn in half regrew from both ends, her monster regrowing new bandaged over its dessicated limbs that failed uselessly in the air for a second and doubled down on me with twice the pressure.

Shit. I fought back with whatever maneuverability I had left but it was pointless. Struggling against the damn wrappings was doing nothing except wasting calories. I cut my losses and went still, fixing her with my darkest glare - the one that promised her that after I was free I was coming for her and nothing in this dimension or any other would save her from me.

"Such a ravishing expression." She purred. I gritted my teeth as she stepped up to me, her monster lowering me down to her through the air so she could stroke one finger over my face. "I cannot wait to devour you." She taunted, flicking my nose like I was some childhood crush. Meeting Ishizu ever again was going to be damn uncomfortable after seeing the lecherous leer that crossed over Teleia's face next. "But I can improve your flavor yet." Her expression was sadistic and filthy, the same as one of Gozaburo's. She glanced to the ugly rotting features that made up her monster's face and nodded at it.

"Huuuuuuuurrrrm…" It groaned out as Regenerating Mummy tightened its bindings around me to hold my wrists and ankles, wrapping themselves around my knees, biceps and thighs. Teleia wasn't done yet though. With a flick of her fingers the pathetic dead-eyed monster dragged my legs apart and her hand slipped between them to paw at my inner thigh like a gold-digging mistress. I'd accidentally walked in on Mokuba's perverted cartoons once or twice. That was enough for me to suspect where Teleia thought this whole scene was going to go but there was no chance of that happening. It had been weird to realize my 'tween' brother was more interested in 'that' sort of stuff than I was but those sort of thoughts rarely crossed my mind. I had better things to do with my time even though I'd admit there was basic, primitive sort of interest in the follow-through that my body reacted to it wasn't enough to get me hot and bothered. I stamped the feeling out on reflex. It was effortless. I'd had years of practice.

I glared down at her, making damn sure she read that in my eyes. It didn't demoralize her for a second. Instead she smirked and dialed up the aggression as her fingers dug into the meat of my thigh. It made me hiss uncomfortably before I could stop myself. It was a fucking relief Atem was out cold and couldn't watch this. Having him be so sick now seemed like an advantage.

That gave me an idea.

A plan clicked into place; all the pieces coming together quickly as if I was reading from a blueprint in my brain. All I'd need was one single card, and time enough to play it.

"Is this really it, you snake?" I baited, smirking at her in a way that I estimated would pass as being attractive, "Tie me up and try to have your way with me? Then eat me? That's your master plan?" I needed her up close and personal to seal this deal and if a little showmanship was what it took then fine. The situation was new but I had a plan to implement and nothing was going to get in my way. From that perspective it was no different from any press conference or exhibition I'd ever hosted. "Come on then; let's get this over with." I demanded, straining against the wrappings of her monster. "But I'm gonna need my hands-" I flexed my fingers, curling them at her suggestively, hating the grotesque insinuation. "-If you want to experience me at my best."

Teleia took one calculating look at my fingers and took a step backward to reassess me, even as Regenerating Mummy bound me even more tightly in place. She wasn't buying it - I could see it in her eyes, but the performance must have been provocative. Her interest was obvious. It was all over her face like I was dangling a rare card just out of her reach.

She bit her lip and eyed my digits with an intensity that made my skin crawl as she sauntered back to me, leaning her body flush against mine and blowing hot air across my ear before whispering into it. "My, my, dinner and delight, is it? Humans truly will do anything just to breathe for a few seconds longer." She eyed me with enthusiasm as she tapped my chin with her finger, once, twice, like she was considering it all. "I _am_ receptive to a small indulgence before a large meal." Her eyes trailed up to the coarse bandages around my wrist keeping my hands in lock-down. "But I have devoured many men far better at playing that game than you-"

"-Try me. I'm good at games." I interrupted, not caring or needing to know exactly where she was going with that story. "And I play to win." I always had.

I glanced over to Atem, just to make sure he was still unconscious and couldn't possibly watch the debasing show I was about to put on. It wouldn't be the first time the Pharaoh had seen me play pretend to get what I wanted- or maybe it would- it was hard to tell how much attention he'd been paying outside of opportunities to pop out of Yugi's head and spring his penalty games on people back in those early days. It didn't matter, that was a long time ago and I didn't want him witnessing anything so humiliating now.

He was still exactly the same as before; panting, sweating and shivering but with no signs of coming to. Whatever. I'd make this quick anyway. There was no way I was risking him waking up and catching me in this next pathetic little act so I swallowed back my indignation and tried to copy the barely there chaste whisper Sphinx Teleia was going for.

My voice came out low and gritty.

"Let me go and you'll find out." I sounded ridiculous. I was also writing cheques that I couldn't cash. I didn't know what to do exactly – my 'accelerated education' had included variations on this theme, but this exact situation hadn't ever been laid out in front of me in textbook format and I'd never felt the need to do an independent study. I didn't let any of that show as I stared Teleia's calculating look down.

After a second a bubble of dark genuine laughter too grim to call a giggle burst from her mouth. "Is that so? Well you have aroused my curiosity." She complimented, rolling the word 'aroused' around on her tongue like a pig in mud. "So let us play." Teleia hissed into my ear. With a flick of her fingers her Mummy's bandages unraveled themselves from my right hand. Just my right hand.

She went straight for my abdomen like she was going to disembowel me and I went straight for my Duel Disk. Running around the desert in a flight suit was about as stupid an idea as ideas came. I'd been cooking alive in the damn thing since the moment I got here, but finally wearing it started working in my favor. Her hunt for a buckle or latch to get it open with gave me the precious few seconds I needed to call my card out and set it face down behind her while she obliviously played 'find the zip'. Now I just had to keep her interested enough not to look back over her shoulder and notice it hovering there until I could spring my trap.

"Skraaaawwwww!"

"Fssst!"

"Grrrhunnnnnnnnnn..."

Her monsters called out to her in screeches, hisses and groans of warning but her focus was on me. They didn't stand a chance as the 'zzzzzzrp' sound of a zip being pulled down its track drowned out everything else from her attention. She was so single minded it was embarrassing.

Being partially immobilized by the bandages of her Mummy actually helped. Being strung up like this stopped me from straight up smacking her on instinct as she pulled apart my suit and attacked my abs with her tongue, laving it over them like they were meant for her - which they fucking weren't. Her hand found my crotch, ghosting over it with false coyness, until she felt my reaction... Or lack of one. She grinned up at me like she'd won something, finally noticing the calls of her monsters now that she wasn't so enthralled with her task.

"It's such a shame. A true shame; but you've lost. I can feel nothing, only your fear." Teleia purred. "It is good enough to eat." Her lips curled into a rabid smile and she flashed her teeth at me, opening her jaws wide as she leaned towards my neck like she was going to bite into me. "As it seems you will be unable to consummate you boast then let us instead skip forward to the consumption instead!"

Damn it. "Tch! You think I've given up already?" I bluffed. This wasn't working. I had too many years of conditioning. Every stupid sexual impulse that she threw at me I'd batted away without even needing to think about in some subconscious game of hormonal table tennis, but it was time to put down my racket and catch the damn ball. I gripped her chin with my hand as she turned to see what her monsters were calling about and turned her face back up to mine, trying to pull her mouth towards me. "I'm just not into you, but don't worry. I refuse to 'lose' just because you're ugly." I goaded, deliberately laughing in her face as her hungry expression turned irritated and then curious again.

"Is that so?" She cooed, slowly sliding her jaw closed again and rocking up her hips against mine. She pressed us together so tightly my skin crawled from the sensation but I ignored that. I'd recaptured her attention - now I had to find a way to keep it. I just needed to put on a good enough show.

Just focus on her, I told myself.

Ishizu or Isis or whoever was hardly unattractive, even with the deranged way Teleia had reconfigured her usual look. Her hair was dark and glossy, her cleavage was decent. Isis had maybe a bit more than I remembered being a thing on Ishizu. Through the damage Teleia had done to her clothing I could see her breasts spill out of her ye olde undergarments like she was wearing a size too small. That was conventionally erotic. Her figure was trim, it curved in and out at all the right places, though her dress clung slightly too tightly across her waist like she was mildly bloated or -

And just like that whatever arousal I'd managed to build up slipped through my fingers, even as the heel of Teleia's hand pressed against my junk. Think of something else; quickly! When was even the last time I felt aroused?

A flash of sensation hit me with a jolt of electricity as I remembered back in the cave. What was it that had set me off back then?

Atem, terrified.

I called up the image I'd made in my mind as easily as summoning a hologram from my Duel Disk and every bit as vivid. I watched his toned chest rise and fall in panic, his eyes slicing around as tiny pin pricks and I felt... almost nothing.

Not that then. Fine.

I swapped out some of the assets, just letting my imagination take the lead. It replaced down-turned lips with his signature smirk and frightened eyes with his usual red laser pointers. The chunk of hair I'd clipped off the end of one of his blonde bangs was back and standing up as unnaturally erect as they always did. His dark skin was clean and his pale clothes were fresh, his Egyptian cosplay looking just like it had back in his palace; covering him in gold and a self-satisfied smugness. The new avatar re-positioned itself, confidently placing a hand on its narrow hips and watching me with some taunting amusement.

It was good. I could feel that. Why was it good? Atem didn't 'do it' for me. That was complete nonsense! I wasn't... So he couldn't – and he didn't. Damn it. The more I thought about it the more the fucking weird fantasy Pharaoh started to break apart under my scrutiny. Fine. I'd have to deal whatever the hell was spurring this nonsensical little tangent later. For now I just focused on the feeling, no matter how shameful the object generating it was. It was still good, but it wasn't finished yet; something was missing.

Audio. What was even the point of imagining the Pharaoh without giving him the chance to run his mouth. My brain queried its internal database for some snippet to play back to me to finish the illusion.

" _I'm fond of you, Kaiba."_ It told me.

It felt like I'd jammed my finger into a wall socket. My body shuddered completely out of my control and a quart of blood that was more useful to me in my brain decided it had an urgent meeting to attend somewhere else. I hissed through my teeth, but this time not because I was in pain.

The phantom crossed into my personal space like it owned it and rubbed a copper hand against me, touching my -

"That's better." Teleia purred encouragingly.

"Shut up!"

She was already ruining it by being too tall, if she started yacking at me as well I'd definitely lose the image.

He rubbed his hand against me, firmly. His hand dragged my thighs further apart with an insistent push in a bid for better access and I could feel my pulse hammering under my flight suit's fly. His hands trailed up my torso, snagging my chin between his fingers and darting his tongue around my mouth. His pace was a bit quicker than I would have liked but this was... 'not bad'. I'd always found the idea of kissing and licking unpleasant but this wasn't half as disgusting as it should have been, considering someone else's mouth was on mine. His movements were almost punishing in intensity as he kept teasing my lips without ever coming close to landing the finishing blow. He was mocking me! I wished he'd just get on with it already.

"Atem." I growled.

"Oh?" a womanly voice chuckled darkly.

I crashed back to reality.

Teleia smashed her mouth against mine hard enough to chip a tooth, the fingers holding my jaw becoming crushing and she raked into my skin with her nails. I thrashed against her but I didn't know why so I forced myself to stop. This was what I'd been waiting for, after all.

My Duel Disk chimed as my trap card activated.

Teleia must have guessed something was up the moment my mouth smirked against hers. She pulled away from me like I was poisonous - and I was.

She'd just realized that fact too late. A bridge of drool left behind by her sloppy make-out session broke between us as her eyes flicked over mine, trying to figure out what was about it to happen. It didn't help. My trap card was too quick to take hold.

With a racking cough she bent double. Thick black ooze splattered onto the palms of her hands as she held them out in front of her.

"Mhahahah!" I laughed in her face.

"W- What is this?! What have you done to me?!" She screamed. The eyes she'd stolen from Ishizu went wide and her pupils shrank until they were almost microscopic as her slimy guts pooled in her cupped hands.

"You've just activated my Crush Card Virus." I declared. Screw being touched up and fondled by some misplaced figment of my own imagination – this was my greatest pleasure!

I wasn't sure if playing the card on myself would work since I wasn't a dark type monster, but Saggi wasn't in my deck to take the hit this time. I threw my head back and roared with laughter at her pitiful panicked expression as the monsters at her back started exploding out of existence. Regenerating Mummy gave me one final squeeze just to aggravate me before its bandages started to disintegrate and it lost its grip on my body. Disentangling myself was easy as it fell apart. I rubbed my wrists and stepped away from it, watching it crumble into dust at my feet; just like everything else that thought it had the better of me.

"Thanks to you the Virus has spread from my body into your deck, destroying every monster you have with fifteen thousand attack points or more." I explained, drinking in the familiar sight of my enemy's absolute terror as Teleia watched her Hieracosphinx crash defeated onto the floor along with her Mummies and overpowered Pyramid Turtle, which were all eagerly devoured by my Virus. I could practically taste her fear as she hacked up another puddle of slime and it started leaking out of her nostrils and eyes like tar tears. "And as a monster yourself with a punishing two thousand five hundred attack points, that includes you too." I narrowed my eyes and smirked at her. "But wait. There's more-" I taunted, a victory rush of adrenaline soaking though every cell in my body as she tried to get a word in, only to be silenced by the river of bile pouring out of her mouth each time she opened it. Fitting. "-Since you and your boss are sharing the same deck, that also wipes out all of Anubis's monster too." For them to have escaped the wrath of my Virus meant they either had to be traps, magic cards, or monsters too measly for my card to bother infecting. It was a master stroke.

Teleia's eyes brimmed with sludge, but somehow she could still make out her phony Duel Disk in the last few seconds before it melted off of her arm. I could see it in her face as it twisted in the understanding of utterly beaten she was as every monster on her side of the field blew apart.

"Game's over Teleia. You lose." They were finished – she and Anubis both! My Duel Disk might be half broken but that was nothing compared to the damage I'd just done to their deck. Now all I had to do was find her boss and deliver my killing blow.

Teleia just shrieked at me as the stuff started dribbling out of her ears and hell knows what other orifices I was spared from looking at. She'd been a tedious opponent, hardly worth my valuable time in the end, but it was a dramatic death at least.

As she choked out more and more her expression started to ease up and she staggered and stumbled until I had to snatch up her arm to keep her from falling over. By the end of it I was the only thing holding her up as the rest of her sagged down onto her knees and her hair closed around her head as heavy black curtains.

This was what I lived for.

**Atem**

My dream had been...strange. A blurred nightmare of indistinct proportions with only the central tenant of Kaiba held aloft in bondage and softly growling my name as memorable. Dreams were fleeting, fickle things that defied any real explanation even in Yugi's time so I excused the oddity, even as the image anchored itself in my mind.

The crackle and fitful spitting of a fire greeted me as I began to wake fully. The heat from it was a welcome guard against the chill in the air. The coolness breezed over my cheeks and neck before scattering harmlessly across a thin blanket covering me from the shoulders down. I tugged at it, lifting it toward my chin to cover my exposed skin and recognized what it was as the hem of it approached my nose. Kaiba's smell was all over it - the smell I had known him to carry from all of our few minutes in close quarters back in the living world without the adulteration of cigarettes or necromancy to stain it. It was strong, and sharp. Mint of some sort, but acrid in a way that stung the inside of my nose. Something artificial. I opened my eyes and confirmed my suspicion that it was Kaiba's coat draped over me, the collar of which I had been intently pulling further toward my face.

My arms felt too heavy as I tried brushing it back down and away from my nose so I turned my head to escape the aggressive scent instead. My body felt so peculiar. I was ill, I realized. Distant memories of being ill times before came back to me in a steady stream.

The stars twinkled above as silent sentries, stalwartly aloft over my head while a camp fire's glow warmed the earth to my side, almost too bright to stare comfortably at for any length of time with the pounding in my head. Across from me lay Isis. Her presence was a surprise but a welcome one. She was very much in need of a bath but sleeping soundly and breathing well from what I could tell.

Kaiba's voice cut through the calm and the quiet of the scene before it could settle with a steely declaration of "Teleia's dead."

His back was to me, poking at the camp fire in obvious boredom with a long piece of wood.

Apparently he could sense I was awake. Continuing to lie prone beneath his coat seemed inappropriate somehow, given the strength-based relationship we shared. My arms ached and my head swam uneasily as I pushed myself to sit up and watched Kaiba's coat slide from my chest to pool in my lap. It was surprisingly warm; the inner material deceptively soft. "How?" I questioned casually, catching a wet scrap of rolled up cloth as it fell from my forehead. Hazily I could remember Kaiba putting it there, harshly demanding I submit to his nursing. In all my years of knowing Kaiba I could never have anticipated such a thing.

"I beat her, obviously." His stoic tone was standoffish - even more so than usual.

Such explained the presence of my unconscious priestess resting on the other side of the camp fire.

"Of course." I relied matter-of-factly before eyeing him curiously. "How did you do it?" In truth I was sorry to have missed Kaiba's victory. They had a habit of being ruthless and spectacular in equal measure, like the final moments of gladiatorial combat, filled with that same roaring energy and aggressive elation.

"Crush Card Virus." Kaiba grunted back, ending the conversation there without any further elaboration.

The soft light of the flames flickered and danced, finding each ridge and hollow cast by his slender ribs and angular spine in the dark material that covered his body. He looked strange without his coat. It was as though I was seeing a tortoise missing its shell with all its usually protected parts exposed.

I peeled back the white cover from my legs and gathered it up in my hands. He stiffened as he sensed I was about to approach him, his body becoming rigid. It was hardly normal, but it also wasn't unexpected. For people like Kaiba and I even in the company of close friends there would forever be a barrier of pride protecting us against the risk of being seen at anything less than our best. This was especially true when around someone whose respect was a hard earned and fragile thing.

Kaiba didn't thank me, or react at all beyond taking his coat out of my hand as I offered it back to him. He slipped it on over his shoulders and across his back like a second skin and without pausing for a single moment covered one of my shoulders with his hand and slid the other over my brow, as though expecting me to run off without it there to tether me in place.

I was unsure if I should frown or chuckle at the terrifying and endearing intensity with which he scowled and assessed me. "You're not shaking so much anymore." I hummed in reply and stayed still, letting him do his work. He looked deeply unhappy and considerably irritated as he went about his obviously self-inflicted doctoral duties. I gasped and almost flinched as his long white fingers abruptly swept over my side. "And your cut's healing." If this was the sort of ferocious care that Mokuba received when sickly then I truly wished him good health for the rest of his life.

"But you're still too hot." He grumbled finally, as though more the victim of my temperature than I was. "You should go back to sleep." He decided for me, fixing me with an unimpressed blue eyed stare.

I'd just woken up. I felt overly warm, light-headed, appalled by the sticky layer of dried sweat coating my skin and physically fatigued but far from tired enough to rest again so soon.

"In a while." I decided.

I joined him by the fire, slowly lowering myself to sit by his side before my strength failed me at the last minute. He watched me through narrowed eyes as if expecting me to keel over but didn't otherwise object to me ignoring his prescribed treatment.

"Your funeral." He noted with dead pan delivery and quickly looked away from me as I settled next to him. Was he trying to 'blank' me again?

"I haven't been sick in thousands of years." I noted, testing that theory. A body was necessary for such a thing and since arriving in my afterlife I'd known only health.

Kaiba grunted before eventually replying, confirming that though he was avoiding my eyes he wasn't ignoring me necessarily.

"Aren't Pharaoh's supposed to be living gods?" He snarked, his words muffled by the cigarette held captive between his lips as he negotiated his coat pockets for his lighter. "You'd think a thing like getting sick would make your toadies wake up and call bull." The metallic flick of the lighter punctuated the end of his sentence as he lit his latest habit.

It didn't work that way, but I suspected Kaiba already knew that and was simply trying to antagonize me.

"Why do you pronounce it like that?" I suddenly wondered. I cast my eyes over him as Kaiba absent-mindedly exhaled his first huff of smoke.

He peeled open his coat slightly to return the lighter to its original place before finally giving me his full attention, momentarily re-revealing the tapered bones and corded muscles beneath. Kaiba's new musculature intrigued me. Though he had always been slim and toned he hadn't been as well built as this the last time I'd seen him in the living world. Now he looked fit and strong; more like a grown man than a long-limbed teenager. The muscles of his chest and abdomen were obvious even at rest. It seemed as though he'd been unsure what sort of contest awaited him in my world and had over-prepared his body to match his new Duel Disk and deck.

"Pronounce what, like what?" He questioned, returning me to my original line of inquiry, ending my suddenly voyeuristic inspection of his body before he could notice. I felt the need to cover my actions behind a guise of pure neutrality, but I couldn't place why. How had just looking at him come to feel so incriminating?

"Like what?" Kaiba demanded again, irritation at having to repeat himself heating his tone and returning me to my question.

Surely he could hear the difference in pronunciation? He may be willfully ignorant but he wasn't deaf. "Kaiba, repeat the word 'Pharaoh'." I tested, smirking as my request was met with a short, clipped "No." His tone was nonplussed and matter-of-fact, but he still turned to bestow an unimpressed glower upon me for good measure.

"Indulge me." I pressed, taunting him with a tone of voice equal parts calm and mocking.

"I already am doing. This whole conversation is me 'indulging' you." Came his gruff reply, his expression suitably unimpressed by my teasing question.

The camp fire danced in front of us, filling the lull with quiet snaps and cracks that reminded me of the braziers in my palace and were soothing to listen to despite their irregularity. It made the otherwise unyielding silence companionable instead of jarring. "Then a trade." I proposed, watching a stray ember flit about.

"A trade?" Kaiba echoed skeptically, but I sensed his curiosity beneath the surface of his projected dubiousness.

"A question for a question." I explained.

He hummed, exhaling a cloud of smoke into the air which drifted lazily away from us as he contemplated my game. "How do you know I won't lie?"

"You can try, but I'll know." Of that I was certain. Kaiba wasn't even half as good at bluffing as he clearly believed himself to be. Watching his stony face for any amount of time eventually revealed the molten rock beneath it when peering through the cracks.

"Tch." He manipulated the cigarette between his fingers as he considered it, the display skillful despite being absent-minded. "You're really that curious?" His eyes appraised me, meeting mine for the first time in a minute.

I nodded, perking my eyebrow at him curiously. "You're the only one who pronounces it the way you do. Even Mokuba doesn't." I paused, if only to enjoy his terse grimace. "Is it unintentional, or are you waging a war on language for the sake of it?" I teased.

Kaiba grumbled something under his breath that I suspected was a coarse insult and took another breath of his cigarette before replying. "It's a regional accent- or what's left of it anyway." He broke my gaze, trailing off to stare up at the sky as he watched the grey tendrils of smoke drift away. It was a gesture of discomfort, disguised as disinterest. He didn't want to continue this conversation.

"From outside of Domino." I noted, mirroring Kaiba's feigned boredom for the subject.

"Nhn."

The reply was thought-provoking, as Kaiba often could be when be wasn't being totally belligerent. "Why doesn't Mokuba share it?"

"We moved into Domino right before he was born, so he sounds like the rest of them." Kaiba took a final gasp from it and busied himself stubbing out the cigarette on the ground beneath him, not caring that the stick had only been partially burned.

That made some sense. For the pronunciation to be so ingrained that it had persisted all the way to his current age Kaiba must have learned the word while he was very young.

"Where did you move from?" I tested, suspected this would be the end of the conversation. It had become too revealing for him.

The response was a surly "Does it matter?" confirmed that suspicion. Despite the conclusion a rush of victorious satisfaction followed the conversations end; I was becoming better at recognizing his limits.

"No." I agreed, diplomatically.

Kaiba paused all movement and hesitated. He opened his mouth to ask a question, "What did-" then snapped it shut, cutting off his words as a mild flush of heat bloomed curiously across his lean cheeks. He abruptly shied away to an obviously alternative inquiry.

"What would you do if you were back in Domino?"

The question took me by surprise. I stared at him, unsure how to answer. Clearly he misinterpreted this as reticence.

"A question for a question - and that's mine. If you had to live in Domino now, what would you do?" He demanded, his strange blush fading away so quickly it was as though it had never been there.

"I don't know." I truly didn't. I could guess why Kaiba was asking - he wanted to know what the aftermath of his gambit to return me to life would have looked like had his plan been successful - but I had no answer to give him.

"You've never thought about it?" Kaiba scoffed at that.

"Not with any deep consideration." I admitted. His expression was unimpressed, like he doubted my intelligence. I waved my hand around the oasis; a paradise within a paradise, crafted for me by the Gods themselves. "This is where I belong, I haven't had a reason to think differently." I wanted him to understand, but I could tell by the way his eyes narrowed and his teeth gritted that he didn't, or wouldn't.

"You're dead. You know that, right?" Kaiba snapped.

"Kaiba, I've been dead for thousands of years." I parried, keeping my tone calm and level against Kaiba's rising temper only because of the outcome of our last conversation about this topic back in his pod.

"Funny how that worked out for you." His tone was bitter and his anger abruptly broke into only a deep exasperated scorn as he looked away from me.

I suppressed a sigh. Kaiba felt very strongly about this, as did I. There wouldn't be any victors if we kept debating it so I changed the subject.

"Do I have a body of my own?" I asked, retreating to his previous question.

"Hn?"

"In your hypothetical situation?"

Kaiba huffed, his eyes trailing his boot as he crushed the corpse of his cigarette into the earth of my afterlife with his boot. "Sure, why not."

I contemplated it carefully. Kaiba deserved a thorough answer to his question, even though he'd avoided fully answering my own. "In the short term I suppose have a meal at Burger World with my friends." I decided. I could conjure the image of it in my mind easily - Joey and Tristan mock fighting over a stolen french fry with whatever condiments were closest as their weapons of choice while Téa and Yugi made softer conversation, punctuated by gentle laughter and the clinking of a stirring implements hitting the narrow sides of their drinks.

"Urgh. You eat fast food?" Kaiba's tone was mildly disgusted and guilelessly chiding. It amused me.

"It's more about the company than the menu." I summarized. I'd only ever experienced hamburgers through Yugi's body and I wondered what one would taste like on my own tongue, though with many of my own customs and cultural beliefs having returned to me I knew for a fact I would prefer it not to have any lettuce.

"You and Mokuba could come too." I teased. The Kaiba brothers were an effortless addition to the scene; sat perhaps a booth away so the elder wouldn't have to make conversation with anyone else as he scowled behind a hot beverage while the younger flitted between entertaining his brother and the others.

"Pass." Kaiba grunted, then smirked to himself as though about to play a winning card. "The company's lame and the food's greasy. And vice-versa."

Despite slandering my friends his gibe lacked any true venom so I chuckled at his retort and a bit of the tension trapped in his pose lessened.

A comfortable pause embraced us as I thought about it.

"In the long run... I don't know what I'd do." I turned my head to the stars, gazing up at them as though the Gods would move them about to draft an answer out for me. Reclaiming my place in the world as the Duel Monsters champion had its appeal, and its flaws. Kaiba had retired from dueling, removing one of my greatest challengers from play and "Returning to professional dueling would be difficult- my likeness could throw Yugi's victories into question." I thought aloud.

Kaiba scoffed but didn't otherwise interrupt.

"And Domino's schooling system is of no interest to me." Of that I was certain.

Kaiba's bark of laughter was abrupt and unexpected but very welcome to hear. "What did you even do all day while Yugi was in class?" A condescending amusement was thick in his words, warming them. "Plan your deck?"

I doubted he'd like the answer, but at least this question I had a definitive reply for. "Sometimes I walked the halls of the Millennium Puzzle." So many dark corridors and branching paths. Despite the heat of my body thinking about it chilled my blood. "But most of the time I just... 'wasn't'." I recalled, struggling for a proper way to phrase exactly what I was trying to say in Japanese.

"You 'wasn't'." Kaiba repeated. He turned to me with a sarcastic twist of his lips. "Who's 'waging a war on language now?"

"It's difficult to describe." Was my defense. "I was capable of just not 'being'. I could come and go as I pleased." Most likely being able to do so was the only thing that had stopped me from losing my mind in all the thousands years between my time and Kaiba's.

"So you slept?"

The conclusion was so simple and Kaiba's delivery so factual it took me a moment to react.

"You're saying you could just turn being conscious on and off, right?" Kaiba pushed, seeming disinterested.

I supposed so, when boiled down to such simple terms. "Yes, I guess." That was accurate.

"Great. Defeated by a chronic layabout." His jeer was sharp but not harsh, so some sort of dark joke.

"Multiple times, Kaiba." I noted, my tone every bit as self-satisfied as such an achievement deserved. I'd interpreted him correctly as he merely huffed in abject irritation; but though Kaiba seemed tame at present rubbing my victories any further in his face was ill advised. There was no sense in poking a dragon in the eye.

"I don't know what I would do if I returned to Domino. That's my answer." I concluded. Our conversations were duels. I was beginning to understand exactly how much of my attack Kaiba would endure before his temper rushed to his defense. "Fortunately such a scenario is beyond my concern." I announced with surety, suspecting the statement may tip the balance..

Kaiba's expression cooled considerably, replying with only a stiff "Hnh."

As was typical for Kaiba he'd tried to cheat to get the better of me in our trade. I'd permitted it by answering each additional question he'd layered on top, answering three questions of his in return for just one of my own, but I couldn't help but wonder what his original question had been - the one he'd so quickly denied himself from asking.

"What was it that you were going to ask first?" He rarely hesitated and he wasn't foolish enough to believe I'd missed it.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He bit back, suddenly calling his rage to his side to protect him from my inquiry. I was far from deterred. My interest increased ten-fold.

Any other words weren't necessary, just my stern and unflinching look.

"It's nothing." In a whirl of white he snapped to his feet, striding away from me and the fire for a few steps. Just as quickly he stopped in his tracks and scowled to himself, as though debating something viciously within his own mind. There was a lingering pause and then Kaiba surprised me. Instead of stiffening into stone his ire was slowly replaced by a morbid curiosity. The stare he fixed me with was impossibly blue; the color of his eyes seeming to glow luminous in the night against his pale skin.

"What did you mean before; when you said you were 'fond' of me?" He demanded.

The suddenly growing blush on his face made mine answer in kind.

I'd meant no more than I'd said. I was fond of him. Though he loathed the term Kaiba was my friend and I enjoyed his company, frustrating as it could be, yet Kaiba seemed to be asking if it had been a confession of sorts. Did he want it to have been? Kaiba's mind had a propensity for twisting otherwise unassuming words into objections and slander. I hadn't realized it might also do the very opposite. Abruptly a feeling I was rarely prey to since Yugi and I parted made my reacquaintance: awkwardness.

Kaiba watched me intently, grimly curious and troubled in equal measure as though waiting for an execution. Possibly his own. We both knew that whatever answer I was to give would be the definitive outcome and there would be no room for a rematch to change the score.

I stood up slowly and took a step towards him, unsure what I wished to say, or how I wished to say it. In response he crossed his arms tightly over his chest as if to shield himself from me.

"Forget it. It's not like it matters." He decided, tilting his head so his hair overshadowed his eyes and made them impossible to read. "We part ways at the end this stupid game anyway. You made that clear." He smirked, bitterly. Kaiba's right hand was a flash of white as he sharply turned on his heel away from me. Catching it was almost like fishing as I grasped it in my own at the last moment before it escaped and held onto it firmly as it thrashed in my grip. As I refused to release it Kaiba turned back to me, his coat flying just as angrily as his expression.

It was true. By Kaiba's absolute way of thinking no matter what I said, our association was doomed to end and so was worthless - yet here he was, rolling the dice regardless by asking me this question.

"Get off." He stated bluntly. He leaned back against me trying to pull himself free before instantly stilling as I demanded his attention with only the sound of this name.

"Kaiba." I stalled, saying it alone as if it could truly delay me from having to answer him while my mind raced.

"What?" He snapped back, simply glaring down at my hand as it held his as though he were a jackal with its paw in a trap and was considering the merits of gnawing it off to escape.

"I _am_ fond of you." I repeated. I really was.

What answer had he hoped to hear? Beyond that, what had driven him so fiercely to come to my world at all? I couldn't guess. I also couldn't answer his query properly until I knew.

"What is it that you want from me?" I questioned. For once Seto Kaiba's intentions were utterly veiled to me.

"To beat you in a duel - to get my revenge - the same thing I've always wanted!" He shouted back, his gaze finally meeting my own in clear reprimand.

"And then?" I pressed, unimpressed by the obvious answer.

"And then nothing. That's it." His words were clipped and short but didn't lack conviction. A cold breeze gusted between us, tussling our hair, my robe and his coat.

"Why? What do you want from me?" He parried, warily and through narrowed eyes.

His counter question surprised me. I wasn't accustom to wanting anything from Kaiba, other than for him to walk a path of self-improvement as I had told him many times in our duels.

Kaiba rolled his eyes at my pause. "Everyone wants something from me." He added with a sneer.

I frowned, turning the inquiry inward. What was my greatest desire for Kaiba? Put simply I wanted him to be happy, and if that wasn't possible for him then I wanted him to be at least contented. It was selfish, a way to relieve the guilt that had planted itself within me while I'd watched Kaiba's tears fall inside of his pod, but I wanted him to find his peace. To live a full life without the wound our association had left on him continuing to cause him the pain that had brought him to my afterlife in the first place.

"I want you to leave my world with whatever it is you came here looking for." I explained, ensuring I used no words Kaiba deemed weak or could be easily twisted in his mind.

"Tch." His thankless scoff was immediate, petulant and pricked my temper.

"What is it you want me to say?" I demanded, heatedly this time.

"I don't know!" Kaiba raised his voice and tightened his stance as though about to duel and I did the same.

"Then just listen." I declared, choosing to take a stand and make the first move, or else we'd be here arguing about nothing until the same time tomorrow. I opened my mouth, not yet sure what would come out of it. Trusting in my friends came easy; as did trusting in the Heart of the Cards. This time I had to trust the heart within my own chest to make sense of all of this.

"I am fond of you! You're a trusted friend and a formidable rival." I began, emphasizing 'am' to the extreme. From the bottom of my heart, truly I was. "I'm fond of your willfulness and your determination. Your paradoxical stubborn mutability!" Now that I had started it was easy to continue. There were many things I liked about Kaiba; though naturally most of them were also his greatest flaws. "I'm fond of your pride, though it does me no favors." Despite shouting my lips slid into a grin. "I'm fond of the peculiar way you pronounce 'Pharaoh' and how recklessly you throw yourself at everything in your way."

Kaiba watched me intently. He hung on my every word as though he had never been complimented before and had no idea how to react. I smirked in amusement at that.

"I'm fond-" then I could continue no longer as Kaiba swooped down to press his lips against mine, harshly and desperately.

My breath caught in my throat. My pulse rushed deafeningly in my ears. I could taste the cigarette he'd just finished in his mouth and feel a crack the arid desert air had left on his dry lips. His left hand held the side of my jaw, locking me in place while his fingers pressed down onto my skin with enough force to bruise if left too long. Was this the answer that Kaiba was looking for? The one he so desperately craved? The blood that Kaiba's oblivious actions had sent racing to the lower half of my body twice in as many days was redirected once again. My hand tightened around Kaiba's own and then -

And then the pressure was gone. I opened my eyes, unsure when I'd closed them and was reminded of exactly how quickly Kaiba could move when he wanted to. He stood tense, every muscle coiled like a serpent about to strike or a horse about to bolt at least five feet away from me, as though he'd magically teleported. Every part of his face was at war with the rest; his expression shocked and angry, his cheeks flushed with an awkward heat and his narrowed blue eyes hostile and deep with shame.

Kaiba snorted dryly and turned his head away from me, the roiling mortification at his actions so clearly shining in his eyes dulling into something calm and solemn.

"Just forget that happened." He decided.

A curious choice of words, and something I wouldn't permit. After spending thousands of years separated from my own memories I couldn't allow myself to 'forget' anything ever again. Let alone something so... unexpected.

"Lie down. Go back to sleep." Kaiba pressed, trying to move the conversation along with the subtly of a raging hippopotamus.

I didn't know if this was what Kaiba had come to my world to find and by his reaction I could tell he didn't know either, yet despite being impulsive I could taste the brutal honesty in his actions. It was uniquely him. It was Kaiba pouring out all his furious feelings and pent up pains across the holographic coliseum he'd created for our duel in the Battle City Finals, it was him beckoning me to slit his throat with my cards atop the castle walls of Duelist Kingdom, it was every duel we'd fought with or against each other and every argument we'd ever had polymerized together into one singular expression of his feelings so sudden and powerful it clearly surprised him as much as me.

Kaiba shifted, hitching his shoulders as regret and humiliation pooled in his gaze. My mind and heart dueled. It was a rare thing for me to feel - this moment of unsurety while my better judgement and riled emotions clashed discordantly as though afflicted by the terrible contagion that was Kaiba's living chaos. I didn't wait for the outcome. Abruptly I knew what I wanted from Kaiba. I wanted him to understand that our feelings were more evenly matched than his despairing expression suggested he believed, and to banish away that dejected look from his face.

"You could wait for my reaction - rather than simply rejecting yourself on my behalf." I noted, the words meeting the air confidently despite my feelings to the contrary. My heart pounded frantically in my chest as I casually raised an eyebrow at Kaiba and he shrugged back, the white leather across his shoulders glowing silver in the moonlight, now once more as composed as he ever was.

"I believe in efficiency." He replied, smirking cruelly at himself. "The result would be the same either way."

Is that what he thought?

I crossed the distance between us, a truer smirk than his pulling at my lips in challenge.

"Does it become tiring, Kaiba?" I taunted as I stood at his feet, his eyes icing over into a protective glare as he gritted his teeth against whatever words he suspected I was going to attack him with next. "Being wrong all the time?" I finished.

They narrowed in confusion for the moment between my hand reaching up the back of his neck, and it guiding his head down to mine.

* * *

**AN:** After finishing writing this chapter I realized there's a little bit of cognitive dissonance in it, because although Kaiba is Japanese and their supposedly speaking Japanese, I'm very much using the English dub version of Kaiba and referencing Eric Stuart's pronunciation of the word 'Pharaoh'. Just go with, I guess?


	22. Chapter 22

**Kaiba**

I hadn't even known I was about to do it until it'd already happened.

My body moved on its own. That was unacceptable. Even worse than stealing a kiss like a horny high school punk; I'd tried to take it back the moment right after, demanding he forget it like a damn coward.

"Does it become tiring, Kaiba?"

He was speaking, but I couldn't concentrate on anything coming out of his mouth over the pulse my ears. My brain scrambled for some inter-dimensional undo button that could fix this whole moronic situation. I could knock him out and pretend it was all a fever dream but it wouldn't work – not with how intensely focused he was on me right now. Those red eyes felt like they were burning right through me. There was nothing left to do but face it like a man. I wanted his rejection to be smug and haughty so the rage from him being a trumped-up blowhard could wash away everything else. If he tried to let me down gently like I was some fragile schoolgirl making a bashful confession, or impartially managed my expectations like a business associate I'd lose it. I gritted my teeth and waited for the inevitable.

And rejection was inevitable.

One way or another that was how this was about to go down. I knew it, but felt bitter about it all the same even as my brain worked through all the logical evidence. I'd never been up to Atem's standards before. Not if his pompous reprimands detailing my every flaw and fault were anything to go by. Why all of a sudden my 'willfulness', 'determination' and 'pride' was something he now claimed he was 'fond' of I couldn't guess, but it had to be bullshit. I wasn't someone that other people were actually 'fond' of. I was someone other people wanted to use, or twist and change to suit their own purposes. I'd learned that when I was a kid from interviews with all those prospective parents who'd come shopping around the orphanage for a 'smart' child so they could reap the prestige from grooming some second hand stray into a boring well-to-do son and brag about their brat to their neighbors. There was a reason every time I'd been marched into the 'greeting room' to sit down and make useless chit chat with a primly dressed husband and wife looking to adopt that my test scores, IQ and preferred academic subjects were the only topics of interest. The other kids got asked about their favorite colors and animals, hobbies and what sort of foods they liked. I didn't. None of those cookie-cutter couples cared who I was, or what I wanted even though they were considering bringing me into their household. I started acting up each time, to make sure they left me the hell alone.

Nothing from back then had changed.

The Pharaoh and his little gang of fools dictated that I needed to change myself to meet their specifications. It was part of every asinine friendship speech Gardner had ever spewed at me, and every post-victory gloat the Pharaoh ever thrown in my face after one of our duels like scraps to a starving dog. Even Yugi had tossed a lecture my way once or twice and he was as soft as they came. Not one of them thought I was acceptable in my current state. They all wanted me to modify myself; switch out my internal components and rewire my circuitry like I was a piece of tech in need of a hardware update. Gozaburo had taken it a step even further. Instead of being just talk he'd actually put in the hours and done the work and paid off a small army of tutors to make sure I was kept adequately conditioned even when he wasn't around to do it himself. I had no idea if he'd been trying to make me into an heir or a psychopath but I had to hand it to him that he did good work either way.

They could get lost. All of them. Everyone on earth could screw off except one, and even he didn't like the way I was. That cut the deepest.

Mokuba had seen it all, had been there through everything and despite that he wanted me to go back to some earlier version of myself like loading a back-up from a hard drive. He wanted a brother who 'smiled', like he remembered from back when he was barely old enough to tie his own shoe laces; one who wasn't 'miserable'. As if I had a reason not to be. As though I could just forget all the things that had happened between now and then.

That had to be why hearing Atem claim to like who I was right the hell now apparently acted like an auditory aphrodisiac.

It was beyond strange to hear all of that from someone who wasn't just another fan or simpering sycophant on the Kaiba Corp payroll, and to hear it all from him no less; someone who's opinion actually mattered. The only one who's opinion actually mattered, other than Mokuba's.

What a fucking embarrassment.

"-Being wrong all the time?" He finished.

_'Wrong'?_

With just those five words he commanded my attention again. My eyes hadn't ever left his, but they'd been looking through him instead of at him. There was challenge in his voice as he strode back into my personal space. The closeness brought me back to the present moment and put me on high alert as Atem stopped toe-to-toe with me and reached upward.

I was too confused to properly react as it happened.

He snagged the lapel of my coat and pulled me back to him firmly, steering my head down to his level. He tried to meet me half way by rising up slightly onto his toes, but still fell short. Literally and figuratively.

"What are you d- ?" I didn't get a chance to finish that sentence.

In one motion I felt him nudge his elbow into my hand which seemed weird, the palm of his hand went to my neck as he pressed forward to brush our mouths together. Atem's kiss wasn't frantic and amateur like mine had been. It was quick and assertive like everything else about him. I froze against him, not sure what this was - what sort of game he was playing - and knew full well how stupidly ludicrous that was since I'd been the one to start it in the first place.

My thoughts raced as our lips fit together and yet somehow not a single one of them was remotely useful. Was he actually kissing me? Yes, by definition. Why was he kissing me? What was he trying to prove? Was this just to smooth over the humiliating performance I'd put on? To spare me? Or was this genuine? That seemed too coincidental, that he actually returned whatever useless chaotic hormones made up my ridiculous 'feelings', and had realized it right the fucking minute after I'd smashed our mouths together. Usually I didn't believe in coincidences, so I let myself momentarily wonder what if this was real. Every duel started with a first turn; with a duelist making the first move. Was that what this was?

Either way I didn't want to be beaten at it.

It turns out when someone starts making out with you then inaction isn't really an option. Atem's usual self-confidence faltered when I didn't respond to him. His eyebrows pinched together anxiously and he started to pull away as I was still figuring his play out and deciding on my next move, or if I should even make a move. The start of his tentative retreat jump started me into action. There was no way I was going to back down, or let him escape. I went with what he'd been doing and reapplied the pressure of our lips, moving them against his like he'd demonstrated a second ago. I didn't know if this was the right play or if I'd just wasted my turn until he slightly smirked against my mouth, like he'd won something, then redoubled his original efforts into a kiss that was domineering and demanding. It suited him and I matched it. Atem's lips grinned against mine as if he'd scored a point and then the bastard darted his tongue into my mouth and poked me with it.

"Ghn!" That was too much. Way too much. A startled grunt came out of my mouth as I jerked backwards and away from him, not expecting him to go that far that fast. It figured that no matter what I did he had to take it a step further; to up the ante and claim some new victory over me. Was that what this was? Pure one-upmanship? My gut twisted at that thought. It could have just been hunger, I hadn't eaten anything in almost two days. That was nothing new but somehow this clenching feeling was different; more agonizing that just a biological rush of ghrelin. For once I wanted to be wrong, illogical as that was.

"You can't be serious." I wiped my mouth off on the back of my hand as I said it.

I'd meant it to be accusing, because he was a lot more sadistic than I'd thought if this was all just a head game, but the statement came out more like a blunt question. The confusing tone running as interference worked in my favor. It gave me time to walk of the shock of Atem tongue lashing me in a whole new way than I was acclimatized to.

There was a small gust of breath out of his lips as he leaned back. He lowered himself back onto his feet and one of his lean arms bent to place his hand on his hip.

"You made the first move." He noted, perking an eyebrow at me curiously. There was flush of red across his face and for a moment I couldn't tell if it was from his fever or this whole humiliating debacle. Atem seemed pretty calm about this despite how outlandish all of this was; or he was pretending to be anyway. Even though his hand was casually balanced on his side, his biceps were nervously tensed up against the surface of his skin, like he was ready to whip out a card at any second. It made me feel a little better to know he was just as determined to downplay it as I was.

"So what, you're just evening the score?" My delivery was sarcastic even though the question hidden face down beneath it was uncomfortably real.

"What?" His eyebrows furrowing and mouth twisting downwards to look offended and enraged. The glare he fixed me with was scalding.

I sneered back, matching his hot rage with my own cold cynicism. "I kissed you, and now you've kissed me, so we're even. Is that it?" If it was then we could sweep this whole thing under the rug and move on like nothing happened. That's exactly what I thought I'd wanted a minute ago, but the idea of actually getting it tasted sour.

"You're a fool if that's what you think." He declared, full of pomp and irritation like he was at the top of his game chewing me out after a duel. I could almost believe he was a living god or something else not fully human as got all riled up. His eyes shone like garnets and his blonde bangs quivered with indignation. I grunted at the abruptness as he snatched the wrist that he'd been gripping up to my chest, holding my hand captive by the joint over my heart. I could see it in my peripheral vision as he knitted his lean fingers through my own and held them there like a vice, forcefully pressing down on my knuckles.

He leered at me adamantly, still pissed even while he held my hand.

"I won't allow you to willfully misunderstand my intentions." There was an intensity in the way his digits locked around mine and rueful determination in his tone. "'This' is no mere game, Kaiba" His eyes darted pointedly to our joined hands, which was apparently the subject of the mythical 'this' he was talking about "Not to me. Not unless we're to play it together."

What? What the hell sort of thing to say was that? The logic of 'I'll jump if you jump' was a better way to initiate a joint suicide than... whatever the hell it was we were talking about here. Some sort of absurd courtship?

"It would never work." My counter was quick and scathing.

I couldn't tell what 'it' prospectively even was, but I knew that fact for certain. For one thing we were both male, then there was the fact we were rivals, opponents, also one of us happened to be dead and we didn't live in the same damn dimension. There were innumerable other reasons, but those were too big to be discarded.

Plus the numbers just didn't add up...

I'd analyzed the key components of rudimentary human attraction while he slept - trying to identify the factors that had created that inane little scene I'd conjured in my mind as Teleia felt me up so I could pick it apart and throw it away. Length of association was a basic one and it checked out- Atem and I known each other for a few years, even though I'd suspected he was just the end result of a terminally bullied kid's psychotic break in the early days. In our respective worlds we were of the same socioeconomic standing, except Kaiba Corporation spanned the globe and his 'country', if you could call this dreamland that, was only as big as his mind made it. Shared hobbies and interests was a point scored in our favor since we were both elite Duelists. We didn't have compatible beliefs - because his were pure nonsense. On top of that there wasn't a chance in hell anyone would call our personalities complimentary; most of the time he couldn't hold back from running his mouth about all the things he'd decided were wrong with me. Three out of five then. It was a pathetic score.

"I've never known you to be so defeatist, Kaiba." Atem angrily retorted, the furrow in his brow easing up at the end so he could half perk one eyebrow at me in irritated curiosity.

He had some nerve! "It's not defeatist if it's a logical certainty." I hissed back at him. Apparently he'd missed the memo about exactly how unfeasible us potentially trying to have any sort of 'relationship' was, if that was what we were debating here. The whole thing was laughable. Completely unrealistic. The only real merit the whole ludicrous idea had was that running around with a half-naked, dark-skinned Egyptian guy would make Gozaburo writhe in his grave.

"I've seen you duel countless times in the face of insurmountable odds." He noted arrogantly, his lips puckering like he'd tasted something acidic. "Yet this is what you draw the line at as being impossible?"

"Nothing is impossible!" I hissed back without even thinking about it, and anything that claimed to be just hadn't dueled me yet! I'd beat destiny itself in Battle City if Ishizu's droning was to be believed, I could call Blue Eye's into my hand every draw I needed it with just a thought and I'd pulled Obelisk the Tormentor out of the fucking ground in Egypt just a week ago despite the card having been removed from existence. I'd suddenly known I could, and so I had. Nothing was impossible!

Atem smirked at me like I'd blundered into one of his trap cards and only after that did I realize he'd baited me into his verbal snare like a rank amateur.

"Tch!" Damn him.

I gripped his fingers with my own, squeezing his hand so hard it must have been painful but linking them together fully with my own in the process. He returned the gesture. Even though our hands were finally completely bound together and our fingers were threading through each other in a bizarre zigzag of dark and pale skin I couldn't tell if we were trying to hold hands or crush each other.

Both, if I had anything to say about it.

He leaned forward, getting as up in my face as he could while being over a foot shorter than me and not caring at all about the height difference judging by the determination in his face. "Then I challenge you to prove it."

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as he called me out and I leaned towards him, matching his moves until our mouths were so close I could feel his breath on my lips and see every single shade of red in his eyes.

"Uh-hmm."

There as a muted noise from behind us. Something half way between the clearing of a throat and a false cough.

Atem and I parted like a warhead had detonated between us and my eyes sliced across the camp fire to find Isis, awake and staring right at us.

Oh great.

"My Pharaoh." She calmly greeted.

She hadn't moved after I flushed Teleia out of her with my Crush Card. Not for a few minutes. It'd been long enough for me to start to wonder if my Virus really had killed her and I was holding onto a corpse. Mokuba was the only person in my life that had managed to survive me, so it wouldn't have been a surprised. Even the Pharaoh couldn't claim that.

"Ohhhhhh." Was the first noise she'd made. It had been pained and quiet. I'd recognized it. It was the sound of waking up in a body that hates you, with a mountain in sleep debt and backlog of metabolic bills to pay. Her fingers had brushed her hair back behind her ear and she'd squinted up at me from the floor. "S-Seto?"

"No." I told her, eager to finally let go of her. Other than Mokuba no one got to use my given name. 'Seto' was just a precursor to 'Kaiba', like Monday was to Tuesday. Hearing it on its own from her irritated me, but I wasn't going to kid myself. I knew that I wasn't the 'Seto' she was hoping for anyway.

She'd blinked at me in confusion before the honest semi-relaxed expression of discomfort the average person might wear around an acquaintance shuttered into the closed off and steely one any sane person kept on for strangers and potential threats – which were just the same thing in my book. I didn't need anything other than that look to know she'd realized who I was, or who I wasn't to be more precise. Then, just when it seemed like she was going to get it together she'd annoyed me by promptly passing out, leaving me not with one unconscious idiot to look after, but two.

It figured that now – right this damn second – was when she had to come to.

"We're not finished here." I muttered under my breath as we both turned back to Isis, keeping my voice so low that only Atem could hear it. He didn't just get to throw down the gauntlet and then flake as soon as one of his new goon squad needed his attention; not on this. Atem nodded back subtly, the motion setting his earrings swinging.

"I'm aware of that." came his smooth answer, barely loud enough for me to make out before he stepped toward his supposed priestess.

Any chance that Isis hadn't caught on to what was happening was dead on arrival. I had no idea what sort of cultural taboo Atem and I were breaking, if any, but her hollow stare was intense and assessing. If she thought something like that was going to get to me then she had no idea who she was dealing with. I dialed up mine to match, glaring back at her.

"Isis." Atem acknowledged warmly. He'd already flawlessly recomposed himself as best he could while he still had a temperature. I followed suit, but could feel a useless hot blush across my face and didn't have a handy hint of fever to hide it. She bowed back to Atem and the probing look in her eyes vanished behind the same dutiful indifference I demanded of my employees. "How do you feel?" Atem inquired, like he was overdue a report on the subject.

I'd noticed the moment he opened his big mouth up in the throne room that the words he chose and the way he said them were more formal here than they'd been back in the real world. It'd eased up a bit while we'd been running around out here like total dolts. It still wasn't back to the way he usually spoke, but it had become less Shakespeare in the Park and more casual. Now that he had one of his lackeys to put on a show for that ye olde theatrical delivery was back at full force.

"As well as is to be expected after such manipulation, my Pharaoh." Isis answered, only encouraging more of his melodramatic pronunciation with her own. "Yet I would return the question upon you, if permitted." She crossed between us to get to him, putting herself between Atem's body and my own in a way that seemed too precise to be accidental.

"It's been taken care of." I announced, snapping my head to the side to hide my disgusting blush.

"I am sure." Isis answered dismissively. She didn't even turn to look at me as she brazenly threw my work back in my face, pretending to be distracted by pressing her hands against the Pharaoh's body and cupping them around his face. Atem didn't have a word to say as she went about her inspection, twisting his head one way and then the other. There really was a first time for everything.

"You are feverish." She summarized. I rolled my eyes. I could have told her that without her needing to feel him up.

"And what, you're a doctor now?" Irritation crawled in my skin and her impartial facial expressions and utterly nonchalant tone didn't help.

Why the hell did she have to interrupt us right when she did? If she'd been watching, and she clearly had been, then any moron would have known to keep quiet for just one more minute.

"My mother was chief alchemist to the previous Pharaoh for many years. Her knowledge of plants and healing dwells within me." Isis replied blandly, ignoring me for the most part as she took a look at the cut on Atem's side. He grimaced as she prodded at it, one eye closing against the pain as the other meanwhile glanced between us. Despite his discomfort he barely suppressed some know-it-all grin, like he was waiting for the punchline to a joke he'd already heard once before. I got what it was he was waiting for a second too late as Isis turned her lousy sense of humor on me and caught me off guard.

"Are you also feeling sickly? Your face is reddened." She asked, deliberately demure about it.

"Tch!" Atem got a good look at my humiliation and smirked wryly as my face only flushed redder at the accusation. Apparently some part of this situation was funny to him. "Mind your own business." Whatever! I didn't need this right now. I turned on my heel and strode away from them further down the oasis's shoreline. My composure was shot and I didn't need her pointing that out.

The fronds and shrubs lining the water crunched satisfyingly beneath my boots, the snap of each stem and rip of the leaves making me feel more in control and more like myself as I escaped from the range of the camp fire's light so Isis couldn't keep staring at me like I was some sideshow freak.

I felt like one after everything that had just happened.

A lot of things I'd known about myself; been one hundred percent certain of without any doubts suddenly had question marks hanging over them. Me leaving the battle field feeling like that was Atem's calling card, but this time we hadn't even dueled. That made everything worse. Instead of walking away with a whole new painful clarity to work towards I felt confused and I suspected once the adrenaline rush from all of this ran out I'd be worn out by it all too. Three days was as long as I could go on without real sleep while remaining reliably functional. I'd done eight once, but after the ninety-six hour mark things just became a shit show.

My eyes itched at just the suggestion.

The moon didn't help either. There was just enough light to make out my reflection and I looked flustered and weak. I barely recognized the mess walking along the shore beside me that had my face. My cheeks were bright pink, my clothes were skewed, the bruise on my face from Atem's sucker punch was unsightly and I had a new cut from Teleia that had apparently bled a bit before closing up. Even my hair was a mess. Usually I could rely on that at least to keep itself in order but apparently not today.

I glanced back at Atem from the shadows, hating that he had seen me so disheveled.

"Please rest and regain your strength while I attend you." I could make out Isis saying to him from a way away. His head turned from my direction back to her and there was a strange squirming feeling I couldn't quantify from knowing that he'd been watching after me.

With a sweep of her hand she gestured for him to lie back down on the sheet I'd managed to make out of all the dry parts of his cloak and unlike when I'd said exactly the same damn thing this time he actually went along with it now that someone he apparently deemed qualified to give him medical advice was ordering him around. They started speaking in hushed tones that were too low for me to hear as he settled down and I didn't care enough to bother lip reading.

When I was satisfied there was no way they'd be able to keep an eye on me anymore I knelt down on the shoreline and splashed some water on my face.

I hadn't realized how quickly I'd gotten used to the feeling of dried sweat and grit on my skin until that rush of water stripped a layer of it off. It didn't matter that the sanitation of it was questionable at best and who knew what was living in it, so long as I didn't pull up a palm-full of water teeming with leeches there was no way I was stopping there. I rolled my sleeves up enough to plunge my hands in to the wrist and repeated the motion over and over until I couldn't feel any warmth on my face at all. It was far from a perfect mirror, but I straightened my clothes based on my reflection and smoothed all the rogue strands of hair down flat.

After another five minutes of tidying I was starting to look like myself again and it wasn't a moment too soon, as Isis's reflection joined my own in the water as she silently crept up behind me. "What do you want?" I questioned, rising up to my feet and turning around to face her as I crossed my arms.

She clasped her hands in front of her gently, inclining her head to me a fraction. "To thank you, for freeing me from the influence of Sphinx Teleia." Came the serene answer.

I rolled my eyes at her dramatics.

"She did not permit me vision nor knowledge of her actions while she controlled my body, but it is plain to see that the Pharaoh is in no condition to have triumphed over her on this night." Isis added. Her tone revealed absolutely nothing, which was impressive. It also made it hard to judge if she was just paying me obligatory lip service or not.

"Hnh." I grunted, narrowing my eyes at her. "Don't mention it." because I didn't want her thanks even if they were genuine. People were easy to figure out, but something in Ishizu's subdued tone and expressions made her difficult to predict. This version of her was no different. I didn't like it, or her.

Having said her piece we stood there in silence, which was preferable to actually having to make conversation with her. She seemed equally at ease with the arrangement, until her tell gave her away. For just a moment her finger tips went to touch the base of her neck, just like Ishizu had done with her tacky Necklace.

"What?" I growled. Clearly she was here for a reason or else she'd have gone back to the camp fire by now. She should be looking after Atem like she'd said she would, not standing around here with me dawdling. "Here to tell me to keep my hands off your king?" I taunted, smirking at her in the dark. I wasn't sure how I felt about everything, but knowing that someone else possibly disapproved of it made me warm up to the idea at record speed.

"No." Isis answered, denying me an interesting reaction to watch. "The Pharaoh is free to do what he will with whomever pleases him." Her eyes slowly slid across the horizon to look me over.

Supremely slowly she reached toward my jaw, not deterred even as I stared her down. I refused to react beyond that; I wasn't sacred of her. Her thumb traced the bruise on my cheek and then my cut. The motions were almost tender. They were boring so I looked away, only bothering to watch in my peripheral vision as her eyes roamed lower to get a look at all the other chunks of me Atem had carved out of my body during our sword fight.

"These wounds are healing well. The tenderness will fade soon." She settled her hands back in her lap, pretending to smooth down the front of her dress with a sweep of her palm that lingered just a fraction too long over her stomach to be convincing.

She shouldn't stick around out here like that. She should get lost, go home and get herself checked out by whatever counted as gynecologist in this time period. Probably some sort of moldy geezer who though animal crap warded off evil spirits and sent their patients home with a prescription of horse spit.

A hideous thought occurred to me.

"It better not be 'mine'." Me, and Ishizu? As if. Not in this dimension. Not in any dimension.

Her fake glanced up at me, obviously confused.

"The Other Me's." I elaborated, trying to put it in terms they seemed to understand. She didn't seem to get every word I was saying, like she couldn't fully understand me. I scoffed. How ridiculous. I was fluent in every language I spoke, even if they were only used for programming. Slip ups weren't an option - a fact Gozaburo had made sure I was acutely aware of.

I could tell the moment she figured out the question – her eyes went wide in horror and her hand darted to her gut like she needed to protect her brat from the idea.

"Oh by the gods, no." She confirmed. I scowled at her blatant disgust, though that was a damn relief. Her face quickly twitched back into its usual grating calmness.

"Mahad and I..." She trailed off, expecting me to get it like I was supposed to know who that was and all of their names. "The Pharaoh's champion." She added, catching on that I had no idea which one she was talking about from my point blank stare. Of course 'the Pharaoh's champion' wasn't much help either – so far it seemed like everyone I'd met in this backwards world was either Atem's 'champion', or 'priest' or something else that sounded ripped out of an uninspired RPG.

"The Dark Magician guy?" I guessed. Or more specifically the card's look-a-like that had tried to stop me from getting into Atem's throne room completely ineffectually. That seemed unlikely, given that he was a trading card. It didn't matter. I didn't care about the answer now that I knew my pathetic knock-off had nothing to do with it.

She slightly smiled to herself behind her hand, as if I'd said something funny. "Yes, the very same."

However that worked I didn't want to think about it.

Her amusement faded quickly, which suited me just fine. Her expression slipped back into its usual bland stoicism as she turned slightly to make sure Atem hadn't woken up. Something in the fugitive way she did it made me suspicious.

"He doesn't know?" I narrowed my eyes at her, watching her reaction carefully.

"None do, other than Mahad." She cast her eyes down to her lap. "We would name him Chisisi, for he is our 'secret'." Her reply was somber, but I didn't know why. She glanced up at me, doleful in a way that made me uncomfortable, "Our first I lost after only a couple of moons". This whole topic made me uncomfortable. "We have told no one, for fear that the Gods see fit to pluck him from me as well." Her words were quiet, like that was some grim confession. In their culture it could have been. If it was I had no idea why she thought it was a great idea to confide in me of all people, but if it was for one second because I looked like my ridiculous hat-wearing imitation then she had another thing coming.

These people were dead – just fantasy NPC's in this half-baked video game. How could they be running around getting knocked-up when they weren't even real? How did this place work? I could physically feel her body when it touched me and she appeared capable of independent decision making but that had to be an illusion if she was just an old memory from Atem's brain playing out a role.

"How can you know something that he doesn't when you're just a figment of his imagination" I questioned, not expecting any sort of rational answer.

She slowly blinked at me before finally throwing "Is that what you choose to believe?" back in my face.

"Then what are you?" I snapped, other than irritating. A memory? A spirit? Yeah right.

She turned her head upward to take a look at the stars before wistfully replying. "The gods crafted the afterlife for the pleasure of mortals, not their comprehension."

A bullshit omission that she had no idea either then, but if the simulation could dynamically create and change it's characters without any sort of external initiation then it was a lot more complex than I'd previously assumed. More so than any Virtual World to date, enraging as that was to admit. With enough concurrent environmental and character updates it almost would be like living a real life. No wonder Atem hadn't even entertained the idea of escaping. It was perfectly manicured life in a perfect place surrounded by people who literally worshiped him. It sounded boring.

"The Pharaoh's fever will break soon." Isis commented, interrupting that thought.

"Tch. You can't know that." I rejected the idea of her being able to predict something like that, even though it was probably true. I doubted anything could keep the King of Games down for long. That stubbornness and the Medicine had done the trick.

"I have seen it before, back when I lived." Once again her fingers ghosted over the spot where her Necklace used to be. If that was the source of her prediction then she'd been wrong before.

"So you've seen all of this before?" I demanded, tersely. I snapped my head in Atem's direction just thinking about the implications of that. I didn't know what was going to happen next turn. That was business as usual when dueling Atem, but suddenly nothing felt normal anymore. This felt more like leaning out of the door of an aircraft ready to skydive with a faulty parachute, not knowing if I was about to have the best adrenaline rush of my life or break into a thousand pieces as I crashed into the ground. If it was actually possible to see the future then I could examine the possibilities and formulate a strategy to get me to the outcome I wanted. Once I figured that out.

"In part. The Millennium Necklace had once shown me you summoning forth the Eye of Osiris, as so it was." The priestess followed my line of sight over to where Atem was lying and then turned away, pretending to be busy by fussing with her robe.

"So what happens next?" I doused my query in sarcasm. Pretending to suddenly be interested in something across the water I turned my head away from her so she couldn't see it as my embarrassing blush punched back. Stupid thing was going to give me away.

Isis glanced back at me with a strange face. "Only what is meant to."

Typical nonsense. I scoffed loudly at that. I didn't want Isis thinking for one second I believed in her mystical fortune-telling bullshit, or that she had actual answers to give me. Not like I needed relationship advice for one that hadn't even started yet.

She ignored it. "Not long after dawn Mahad will meet us here. I have seen no further after that." Her eyes were pinched at the corners and she was pressing her lips together like she was trying to hide a smile.

"What?" I demanded. What was with that reaction?

Ishizu had a way of pissing me off with just a look – looks like this version of her did too. Isis's eyes gleamed with some low-key amusement that she was clearly failing to hide. "I am sure your efforts will be rewarded." She added, slowly. If she was trying to spare me humiliation then she was doing a bad job.

There was a long silence before Isis decided to change the subject.

"Your skin is quite cool to the touch." She noted. No breaking news there. With a smooth arcing of her arm she gestured backwards. "Come and join us by the fire." I rolled my eyes at her as she invited me back to sit around the camp fire that I'd made in the first place. The raw nerve of these people.

With an inclination of her head she excused herself and floated back over towards the camp to kneel down at Atem's side. I could make out the movements of her body silhouetted against the flames as she smoothed his bangs down away from his face and readjusted the cloth I'd left over his forehead, flipping it over before putting it back.

"Tch." With a grunt I stalked back over to them, not because she told me to, but because I wanted to. I'd lit the stupid fire to use it after all.

Trampling the shrubbery under my boots felt just as satisfying on my way back, until something hard and cylindrical caught on the underside of my foot and threw off my stride. Even though it was half sunk into the sand and covered in a coat of slimy goo I recognized my genius immediately as the otherwise undamaged shape of Atem's Duel Disk gleamed wetly in the moonlight. With a leaf I wiped off what I assumed to be the left over guts of Pyramid Turtle and jostled it out of standby mode, the device loading up with a yellow glow.

I smirked.

We had a second Death Counter no thanks to the crash, and Atem and I might be about to start an exhibition match of our very own to complicate things, but ignoring all that our odds of winning this duel had just doubled.


	23. Chapter 23

**Mokuba**

"Jeez, some guestroom!" Joey teased as he opened up the sliding door to the balcony and stuck his head through.

I nodded to Hobson as he shepherded the maids out of the room and closed the door behind him while Joey walked back over to the bed and started punching one of the spare pillows. He stuffed it behind Yugi's head to prop him up a bit more, but it wasn't really needed. Yugi looked comfortable enough already and it wasn't like the household staff had never dealt with a comatose person before - weird as that was.

Once he was done beating up the bedding Joey wandered around the room poking and prodding at everything; the lamp shades, the curtain ties and of course all the trinkets that were peppered around the shelves to make the space look more 'homey'. How genuinely intrigued he was by every little detail made me smile a bit but there was something extra dumb about decorating the place with store-bought knickknacks and keepsakes to make it look friendlier. Mementos were meant to be special, not something snagged out of a store to pretend the room was more lived in than it really was. I guess beggars couldn't be choosers. Gozaburo had tossed all the souvenirs and games the orphanage had let Seto and I keep into the fireplace right in front of us so it wasn't like we had a bunch extra lying around to use as decorations.

"Nheh! It's even got those packaged up toothbrushes an' mini toothpaste tubes like in fancy 'otels!" Joey shouted to me from the bathroom - like I didn't already know.

"It wouldn't be much of a guestroom if it didn't have toiletries, right?" I called back.

"Guess so." Joey snickered, the mechanical clunk of the lever being pulled and the rushing sound of water flushing down the toilet sounded off. Gross. He hadn't even fully closed the door. I heard the faucet run before he came back out wiping his hands dry on his jeans despite all the hand towels. "Are all of em' done up like this?"

"Nope. Only this one and another." The mansion had lots of guestrooms - it used to have way more when Gozaburo was alive, but some of them had been converted into other things since. Seto had even knocked down a wall to merge two of them together into a home cinema. My big brother's logic was that since there was no way in hell he was ever going to allow so many guests to stay the night keeping a tonne of extra rooms didn't make sense, and making up the rooms each day was an inefficient use of the maids time. After Pegasus turned over half of our employees against us he'd cut back the mansion's staff, only keeping the ones we knew we could trust. Since then only two guestrooms were made up each day, with the others only being aired out every other week. That wasn't why I'd picked this room out though. I'd chosen it because it was my room back when Gozaburo was alive and I knew the mattress was really comfortable.

It was strange to see the place I'd basically spent half my childhood in tidied up and refurbished as a guestroom. It almost felt like an effort to erase all the memories I'd made in here. Maybe that was Seto's intention, but I didn't mind looking back. He probably thought I should hate our past as much as he did. Thing was, unlike him I remembered more than just the bad stuff. I glanced over to the middle of the room, knowing that under the antique rug the interior decorator had put there was a loose floor board, and under it was a treasure trove. I actually used to call it that, but I'd been really little at the time.

Having all our games burnt up hadn't beaten Seto - not even for a minute. He'd sulked about it for half a second and then come up with a plan.

We'd pulled the box from one of Gozaburo's pairs of dress shoes out of the trash the next day and stashed it away under the squeaky floorboard in my room. Into it went everything we could swipe without being noticed. Junk like wine corks, pen lids, coasters and any ornaments small enough that we could fit into our pockets became the new game pieces of whatever we played. There were stacks of stolen paper crayoned to look like chess, checkers and monopoly boards - complete with hand drawn money made from sheets of toilet paper that had half the numbers backwards because Seto let me make them and only noticed the fives were inverted after I'd already used up a whole roll. It didn't matter back then that they were crude and sometimes even actual trash; my big brother sneaking into my room after dark and the two of us prying up the board to play games with all the 'toys' we'd repurposed were some of my favorite memories.

I was waiting for the day I could dig the shoe box out, show it to my big brother, and actually see him smile at it. That day would come - I really did think that - sometime after all this Pharaoh stuff was finished with for real.

The legs of one of the wooden chairs from the balcony scrapped against the floor as Joey pulled it inside into the room and over to Yugi's bedside. He flopped down into it and pulled a face. "So now we just wait, huh?"

Shrugging back was all I had. "I guess."

Joey bounced his leg up and down restlessly. It didn't look like he could keep still. Waiting around and being patient didn't phase me at all, I had so much practice it was one of the things I was best at. Joey on the other hand was always on the move, doing something or bugging someone. It figured that the idea of waiting around for the next thing to happen wasn't his style.

He awkwardly cleared his throat and started talking, probably just to give himself something to do.

"Soooo. whad'ya think 'is chances would actually be?"

"Huh?" It wasn't the greatest reply in the world, but I didn't know what he was talking about.

"Kaiba's - of winnin' against Atem in a duel, if they got t'play it out." Joey scratched at his nose, his eyes aiming towards the ceiling like he was trying to imagine it. "That's what he went for ain't it?" He leaned back in the chair casually and crossed his arms behind his head.

"Yeah." I confirmed, not really sure how to answer even though I'd asked Seto the same thing, sort of...

Seto had been out of it the whole morning before the pod's launch. He'd climbed into the limo that was taking us to the space station lift and anchored himself into one of the leather seats with a tension that'd made even the chauffeur uneasy judging from the look weird he shot us in the rear view mirror. It wasn't the untested Dual Dimension pod or unknown risks of inter-dimensional travel that had been getting to my big brother though. It was the Pharaoh. I could tell that from the way he'd subconsciously tapped his finger against the inside handle of the car door and spaced out with a distant look on his face.

"You'll win for sure this time, right Seto?" I'd encouraged with a grin, trying to snap him out of it. "I saw the most recent simulation report this morning. It's predicting an eighty nine percent chance of victory." That was the highest it had ever been.

That got his attention. He'd crossed his arms to match his legs and refocused on me. "The numbers don't lie, but eleven percent is still too high a margin for error." He'd replied back sourly before his voice heated up in the way it always did when he talked about Atem. "And the Pharaoh will make every percent count." After a few seconds he scoffed to himself and pulled his phone out. He punched up the image of the tablet his laptop had been translating by the pool last night and stared at it.

"Even if you don't maybe it's okay to just call it a draw and let it go?" I chanced, watching my brother's expression carefully as he glared at the photo. It wasn't a logic Seto would ever go along with, I already knew that, but I wanted him to know that it was fine with me even if he did lose this 'ultimate duel'. It wasn't the end of the world.

Looking back I wish I hadn't said that to him.

I hadn't realized exactly what I'd done until it was too late but I knew I'd messed up as soon as I saw that gleam in Seto's eyes - the sort of overly bright one that a lot of other people seemed to find off-putting. It only flicked on when my brother had some crazy new idea. Without skipping a beat he's pulled up his Duel Disk and begun tapping away through a bunch of menus with an intense look on his face.

I'd frowned as I watched his fingers fly across the UI. "What are you doing?"

"Modifying my deck." He'd told me matter-of-factly.

I'd thought that was weird. "How come?" I'd asked. Seto had spent months finalizing his deck and after the duel with Diva and Yugi he'd finally had the data to perfect it. Changing it up hours before the big match with Atem didn't seem smart.

"I just thought of a new strategy." He elaborated but his voice was empty and toneless, which meant he was hiding something. "One that will win no matter what." His eyes had narrowed and he'd smirked. He did that a lot when he was thinking about beating the Pharaoh. It wasn't always a good sign though and there was a dark lilt to the way he'd said those last words.

I'd spent my whole life with Seto. I knew how his mind worked - most of the time. Now that I also knew what the tablet's spell did I could guess what that 'new strategy' he'd suddenly come up with was. He planned to force a draw with Atem and bring him back here. It was kinda obvious. It was also frustrating because it was me who'd given him the idea. That made all of this my fault, even though I hadn't meant it that way.

"Depends, on the deck he uses, the strategies - you know, duelist stuff." I deflected, answering Joey's question. And on if my big brother was even trying to win. That was the biggest factor. Maybe he wouldn't even need his new plan though. Maybe he'd win without it and none of it would matter. "He already beat the Pharaoh in simulation." I reminded myself.

"Pft." Joey waved that off like it was a bug buzzing around him. "Like any robo-pharaoh could compare to the real deal."

He had no idea just how authentic Seto's 'robo-pharaoh' really was. It was creepy in how life-like my big brother had got it to being over the years.

"Man, think how crazy it would be if the spell werked and Atem came back with 'im." That threw me but luckily Joey didn't notice. He kept grinning up at the ceiling. "Like that would happen though, nheh."

"By choice, you mean?"

Joey's eyes jumped down to mine and he stared, like I'd said something strange. "Yeah o'course by choice." He eyeballed me suspiciously for a second before shrugging it off. "Why else would he come back?"

I shrugged right back. I didn't want to tell him anything else, because he wouldn't understand. None of them would. They didn't know how badly my brother needed to finish this, no matter what it took. Joey just kept staring at me, waiting for me to say something.

"If Atem came back..." I began, but had to pause half way to figure out my reply. 'Willingly' was the word I didn't say, but added it on to the end of my sentence mentally anyway. I pictured the Pharaoh walking out of some big glowing afterlife portal or climbing out of the Dual Dimension pod with my brother, trying to visualize it for myself. I wasn't ready for the rush of pure anger than shot through me at the thought. I didn't want the Pharaoh to come back. How was I only just realizing that now? If he did then all of this would never end - Seto would never get over it and move on. Not to mention that if he came back willingly, for Seto's sake, that would be even worse. Knowing that someone was living just for you, dedicating their life to yours and putting what they wanted and needed aside... it was sad. I knew that better than anybody. At best there was the guilt of being someone else's obligation and at worse the helplessness of having to watch how that person twisted and changed under the pressure until it made them so completely different that they couldn't go back to how they'd started.

I didn't want that for Seto.

"Earth to Mokuba. Y'in there?" Joey drawled with a snicker.

"Y-yeah." I threw a grin his way, pretending that everything was fine and that I'd just zoned out. "I hope everyone ends up where they're meant to be." I concluded honestly.

For my brother that was here, with me. For Atem that was in the afterlife.

I felt myself frown. I was bitter at my own bitterness. How dumb.

Joey shot me a supportive grin from across the bed and pulled out a thumbs up. "Don't worry, Yug'll come through. He always does." He jostled Yugi's shoulder while he lay in bed loudly shouting 'Right, bud?', as if he expected that to wake Yugi up so he could reply.

His encouragement just proved that Joey didn't get what I was thinking, and that was probably for the best.

**Atem**

I stretched as I awoke.

My limbs no longer ached from doing so and I chanced sitting upright to find that thankfully the lightheadedness that had accompanied the action last night had faded until it was barely noticeable. The sweat of my body had dried leaving behind the faint outline of undignified stains rounding my armpits and neckline as well as a scattering of smaller marks where it had pooled in the valleys of my abdominal muscles. The sight was unseemly, but mercifully the dizzying heat had receded to only a lick of lingering warmth as I chanced touching my forehead.

Isis's sleek form wordlessly knelt down at my side ready to attend me as I peered through the half-light of a new day to see that Kaiba's clearly unattended campfire had fallen into only a pile of softly smoldering ash. Kaiba himself was nowhere to be seen. I wondered what form of mild to intermediate chaos he was off sowing now, the thought filling me with the contradictory fondness he had demanded I elaborate on the night before.

"Where-"

Isis hushed me with a touch of her fingers to her lips. Silencing a Pharaoh was audacious, but as a paragon of propriety I found Isis's strange gesture curious instead of disrespectful.

Though muted there was a gleam of good-natured amusement in her eye. The same one that she and Mahad often shared when they were jesting with my High Priest at his expense. It was well-meaning and rarely unprovoked but was more difficult to judge now that I guessed it was being aimed at Kaiba instead.

With a meaningful tilt of her head I allowed Isis to lead my gaze toward a nearby date palm, one of many alike all bearing an unseasonal bounty of sweet fruit and jostling for position around the oasis's edge. Though short compared to others its trunk was wider, so much so that only the angular peaks of Kaiba's coat were visible from our vantage point on the opposite side.

"Apologies, my Pharaoh." The part of Kaiba's shoulder visible to me twitched in response even as Isis whispered the words, "It seems he is a poor sleeper."

I nodded back in understanding as I leaned forward, finding a new angle that brought the side of Kaiba's body and his face into my view. He looked tired and uncomfortable. The duelist's head was bowed at a harsh angle, his chin resting on his chest as though he'd fallen asleep accidentally and his own Duel Disk lay half disemboweled across his legs along with the small toolkit he'd rescued from his pod in the desert and the very welcome sight of my own Duel Disk, appearing to be whole and in working condition. With its return I'd be able to liberate Yugi from the Millennium Puzzle as soon as it was safe to do so.

Wait. Where was the Puzzle?

The familiar weight of it around my neck was gone and I could scarcely believe I hadn't noticed its absence earlier. It shamed me too that this was the first time I'd thought about Yugi's plight since the cave. The terrible breathless feeling that had struck me there; riding on Kaiba's back as he flew for the first time in his dragon state; the overwhelming rush of last night - all of it had banished everything else from my thoughts. Knowing Yugi he'd understand my distraction, but that only made my own callous disregard for my partner sting more painfully. I owed him an apology. I jerked my head around our campsite searching for the Item in the pre-dawn darkness that threw everything into impenetrable shadows. Several pieces of my jewelry were also mislaid and that was an unlikely coincidence.

_"Why are you undressing me?"_

_"You have a fever. I'm getting all this crap off you so I can bring down your temperature."_

Ah. The fevered memory of Kaiba removing it from around my neck and the feeling of the silken cinnamon hair that lined the back of his neck pressed against my cheek as I rested my head on his shoulder came back to me in a rush. Knowing approximately where to look I cast my eyes to the place Kaiba had lain me yesterday and found the Item's telltale silhouette unassumingly crowning a small pile of cast off finery. I collected the Puzzle from its resting place swiftly.

_"I'm sorry, Yugi."_ I willed into the Puzzle's depths as I held it in my hands. Once more I received no reply, sensing only the yawning darkness of the Puzzle's core. I frowned at that. It was if he was no longer present within it. That didn't bode well and only doubled my determination to end this duel as quickly as possible. Freeing Yugi's soul from the Item before it was safe from any attempts on it was foolhardy and for his sake, as well as Kaiba's, Anubis's defeat couldn't come fast enough.

"Mahad will arrive here soon." Isis softly announced from beside me. I turned to her to find her watching me closely. I still didn't know what to think of our softly spoken conversation the night before - of the council she had offered while I'd watched Kaiba flee the light of his own campfire, but there was no time to dwell on it as her newest words gently struck me.

Hearing that my most ardent champion would soon be meeting us here lit a hopeful fire at my core.

He'd been tracking Teleia for as long as she herself had been hunting us. It wasn't a surprise that he would eventually converge with us here at the site she'd been defeated. It was very welcome news. Mahad had a more rounded knowledge of Kaiba than anyone else in my priesthood and after last night I would welcome the council of another, or just the chance to tell him of the unexpected development. Simply thinking about it filled half of me with the deep trepidation that comes from knowing a thing to be a bad idea and continuing to do it anyway, while the other half wished nothing more than to jostle Kaiba awake right now and continue from where we had been interrupted to see the conclusion. The feeling was intoxicating and foolish to let run unbridled.

"By your leave, I would like to go on ahead and meet him." Isis quietly requested and I granted her it immediately with a nod of my head. With Kaiba, Isis and Mahad at my side we'd make short work of finding Anubis and put his villainy to an end. What that end would mean for Kaiba and I, I didn't know now. It was admittedly short-sighted but I placed my belief in destiny once more and forced any second guesses out of my mind. I trusted we would meet our fate when the time came, whatever it was.

Near soundlessly Isis rose from her seated position in a slow smooth motion. She cast one last curious glance over her shoulder towards Kaiba before gracefully picking her way between the fallen leaves and loose natural debris that blanketed the ground to noiselessly make her way from our camp and toward the mouth of the canyon that acted as the single long corridor of entry into the oasis's heart.

As soon as she was beyond my vision I turned back the duelist sleeping restlessly to my side. I trusted my footfalls to be too quiet to wake him as I crept over to reclaim my Duel Disk, watching Kaiba closely for signs of stirring. His eyes pinched together tightly as I approached and his mouth morphed into an unconscious sneer but still he remained asleep, even as I came near enough to collect the device and take a seat on the ground beside his tree.

The Duel Disk restarted not a moment too soon with a soft jingle that was far too cheerful to be something of Kaiba's choosing. It loaded up quickly, eagerly rendering my holographic interface and informing me of all the updates to card statuses that had been made while it was in stand-by mode somewhere in the stomach of Bird of Roses. A Death Counter had been added to Anubis's player profile following Teleia's defeat. Beyond that it was apparent Kaiba had been busy with more than just slaying the Sphinx and dismantling his Duel Disk while I was sleeping. His Kaiser Sea Horse had been swapped to attack mode, which meant it had been returned to the field – based on the card log Kaiba had done this in reaction to one of the unknown face down cards on Anubis's side of the field having been sent to the Graveyard.

I searched the vicinity for the sea serpent that Kaiba had named his Deck Master during our time in his step-brother's Virtual World but couldn't see the monster. Though he hadn't otherwise moved I turned back to meet Kaiba's piercing blue gaze awake and studying me carefully as I completed my sweep of the area. I became locked in an impromptu staring contest with him as he pinned me with a long fixed look, as if waiting for me to blink. I closed down the Duel Disk's interface and returned its creator's stare, if only to rise to his challenge.

"You're feeling better, huh." He quipped as he broke our eye contact and turned away slightly to clear his throat and massage his right temple beneath the thick fringe of his hair. He'd asked sarcastically but I suspected his sarcasm was only a means to shield genuine questions that he perceived to be too 'soft' for his pride to permit asking outright.

"I am." I confirmed evenly, watching as Kaiba sat up properly and subtly rolled his shoulders. The movement was only very slight, as though he was trying to hide it despite the fact I already knew about the injury. I felt a prick of disappointment at the sight. Yesterday we'd broken new ground and I didn't like the idea that Kaiba may have already begun trying to retreat back into our previous status quo.

"Your shoulder-" I pointed to the left one, testing the waters by asking "-does it still hurt?". Kaiba stilled immediately. The look he leveled at me in return was cold and studious. His lips pressed into a thin line as I watched him and after scoffing to himself he turned away to stare at a nearby shrub.

"It's a torn labrum, and it aches." He grunted to the plant.

Small as it was that admission of minor discomfort, of what he perceived to be weakness, reassured me with only two words that things were indeed now different.

"I'll probably need another arthroscopic shoulder surgery once I get back." He added with a scowl, no longer bothering to hide his actions as he worked his hand around his shoulder and kneaded the joint. "There's a bunch of pins in the bone that are supposed to keep it anchored, but at least one's loose. That's the only reason you could leverage it out of place."

I wasn't familiar with the bodily terminology of Kaiba's time and a 'labrum' wasn't a word Yugi had known either. I raised my eyebrow at him, hoping for some sort of explanation and wondering if I would receive one.

Kaiba rolled his eyes at me as if he expected it to be common knowledge but nevertheless answered me. "It's the ring of cartilage around the rim of the shoulder socket that helps stabilize the joint." he explained.

"Ah." I hummed back, concluding that conversation without words.

There was a deep, stormy intensity in Kaiba's expression as he watched me, clearly waiting for me to ask any number of questions that we both knew were a logical, if foolish, follow up. It was as though his anger was a hungry pet he had yet to feed this morning and was searching for any provocation that might volunteer me to be its first meal of the day. I denied him the trigger he was so expectantly waiting to hear and turned to the sky instead, knowing full well that asking about the injury's original source was ill-advised; akin to deliberately triggering an enemy's face down card without any prepared counter-measures.

Within a moment Kaiba withdrew his blade of attention and focused it elsewhere, rotating his shoulder fully and gritting his teeth in part as he did so, then relaxing it. He patted smooth the leather padding of his coat's shoulder pad before turning his face away from mine to leer fiercely at the horizon with me.

It was oddly peaceable, being sat here on the sand beside Kaiba, especially after our heated exchange the night before. Together we watched the orange rays of Ra's solar barge spill new light to banish away the deep indigo of the night sky as the sun began to crest over the horizon. The dawn slowly began to restore color and detail to the rocks and plants around us that had been cast into deep silhouettes by the moon, breathing warmth into the world once more. I crossed my legs and leaned back, resting my palms against the soft earth and catching the outer edge of my hand against Kaiba's in the process. The motion drew his attention away from the sky and down to the ground where our two hands now lay side by side on the earth.

"Tch." He glanced back up to my face, his expression as stony as ever.

For a brief moment he lifted his hand up and away from mine. It hovered in the air in what I suspected his unreadable expression was trying to disguise as anything other than a moment of hesitation before he finally lowered it back down to place it on top of my own - loosely gripping my hand as he covered it with his own. The touch was tentative; enough so to give me room to flip mine upward from beneath it so our palms touched and I could weave my fingers between his. Belatedly he returned the gesture and curled them around my hand to mesh the two together just as we had last night.

"This feels weird." Kaiba critiqued, bluntly. The statement was so true and pointedly factual it made me laugh unexpectedly.

"Yes." I eventually agreed. Yesterday's potent torrent of emotions had abated and without it this all felt more than a little abnormal. Not unpleasant, but strange. "We could stop." I noted as a neutral observation. Stopping was indeed within our power.

"It's fine." came Kaiba's bland reply. His eyes sliced over to mine, only returning to the sky after I nodded in agreement.

We sat together in silence, neither of us ready to address the night before yet and both trying to exude our usual confidence even while the quickening pulse in my veins and the beginnings of a layer of cool sweat slicking Kaiba's palm threatened to expose us.

This excitable anxiety was something I'd experienced through Yugi when he was faced with public speaking or presentations of his schoolwork in the classroom, but I'd rarely felt this way myself while alive. I was born to be a Pharaoh, groomed to be beyond this sort of compromising nervousness. I'd faced down many powerful foes without ever feeling this fretful, including Kaiba himself. Now in this unfamiliar arena I was just an initiate, still trying to understand the workings of a new role without sabotaging it in the process.

"What were you doing to your Duel Disk?" I was curious, but also wondered if the distraction of diplomatic conversation might make us both feel more grounded.

"Transplanting some components." As if reminded of its existence Kaiba began gathering up the components with his free hand and slotted them back into place in an impressive show of ambidextrousness. "One of the tertiary projection coils in yours was damaged, so I swapped it out for one of mine." He held a small band which I assumed to be the coil in question captive between his fingers to demonstrate, before slipping it into a hidden pocket on the inside of his coat.

"I see." I doubted doing so was Kaiba's preferred solution and was likely the only choice he had left but I added "I appreciate that." nevertheless.

"Save it." He chided testily, confirming my suspicion as he pressed the shell of his Duel Disk back into place. "Our odds are better if at least one of us has a fully operational Duel Disk, and mine's already damaged." He grimaced at the device for good measure, as though testing if he could glower it back into functionality.

"Did Kaiser Sea Horse despawn again?" I pressed, watching with mild fascination as Kaiba managed to maneuver a small screwdriver one-handed and drove the screws that held the Duel Disk's case together back into place. The motions seemed well practiced.

"No." Kaiba's answer was dismissive and disinterested as he worked on his device. "It's still here." he added, most likely meaning he had purposefully placed the monster out of sight.

"You've hidden it." I concluded aloud. Knowing how his mind worked and with an imposing statue much greater than Kaiba's own there was only one place that he would think to conceal it. His eyes pinched as I glanced across the still waters of the oasis, his irked expression telling me I had guessed its hiding place correctly.

He sneered back, "It's a precaution" clearly frustrated to have been so easily figured out.

"A precaution?" I repeated, the unspoken question of 'why' inherent in my tone.

"Don't be stupid." Kaiba scoffed back. I narrowed my eyes and raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for a worthy explanation for his rudeness. The one I received was unexpected. "If Ishizu was compromised during your duel with Anubis-" Her name was Isis, and he knew it, but that was beside the point. "-Then we can assume the other one was too."

'The other one' I took to mean Mahad, based on the context. I'd spoken to the Magician myself after Anubis's first defeat in my throne room and hadn't detected anything strange in his manner.

No, that wasn't true.

He'd seemed distant and absent in a way I hadn't been able to describe, only sense. I'd thought it was just a momentary distraction created by his concern for Isis. If there was any chance that Kaiba's suspicion was true then that would place Isis was in very real danger. I twisted my head around to look in the direction she had departed in so quickly it nearly pulled a muscle in my neck.

"Relax." Kaiba huffed tonelessly. "I let her in on my hypothesis last night after I finished patching your Duel Disk. She said she'd go ahead to check it out." I threw a scolding look at Kaiba and his sheer lack of care for the situation, or Isis's safety. He steadfastly ignored it, paying more attention to playing with his device than to my rage, fanning it with a surly statement of "It's my theory that he's been using that stupid Magical Pigeon card to tail us."

What! Had Kaiba suspected this from the outset? "When did you intend to tell me this?" I demanded. He may not think of either Isis or Mahad as being 'real' or my friends, but Kaiba knew I did and he'd withheld the information nevertheless.

"Tch." Kaiba's eyes raised from his tinkering to narrow at me. We glared at each other for a long moment, Kaiba mirroring my energy with his own. His shoulders had stiffened at the heat in my voice, and the oaf matched it with a standoffish counter of "Since I figured it out defending your unconscious ass from Sphinx Teleia."

I relented my reprimanding expression. "I see." Then it was knowledge that had only recently come into Kaiba's possession. "And Isis agreed to test your theory of her own volition?" I frowned, feeling a little of my rage abate.

" _S_ _he_ volunteered." Kaiba snapped back moodily and then whipped his head back to his device to ignore me once more.

There was logic in trying to proactively seize an advantage over our foe. If Mahad indeed had fallen under the sway of another of Anubis's minions we could use its expectation of our ignorance to gain the upper hand. It was a clever play. One I couldn't begrudge if Isis had willingly agreed to be a part of, yet somehow the idea of being left in the dark agitated my temper. During my life entrusting my priests to work without my knowledge to protect my throne and my realm had come naturally. Why only now did leaving them to do so of their own accord feel so disquieting?

"It's not that I doubt you, or your intentions." I faltered, considering my own question. Kaiba's dark look grew only sharper at my pause. I looked away from it, contemplating my words carefully.

"In your world I became used to the fate of the world weighing on me alone." It was an admission and an unspoken apology fused into one. I'd grown unaccustomed to having my battles fought for me.

Kaiba snorted derisively. "Whatever happened to 'you're never alone if you've got friendship' and all that bull?" He challenged, though he did add a mocking lilt to his words.

I regarded him for a moment, wondering if he realized that by throwing that argument in my face he was on some level also acknowledging that we were indeed friends. If he did then his sour face certainly gave nothing away. I chuckled at that and blinked slowly. "Well said." I taunted, followed sincerely by, "You're right."

Something in the way Kaiba held his jaw seemed to ease slightly, which I took to mean the spat was forgiven. Kaiba only grunted at me in reply, even as the tense grip of the hand covering mine relaxed. With the hostility in the air lifting I returned my thoughts to my Magician and the matter at hand. If Mahad was as similarly afflicted as Isis had been then he'd make a truly formidable foe.

From beside me Kaiba scoffed at something without bothering to verbalize what and struck me off-balance with a toneless comment of, "Get rid of Isis once she's back." I balked at his brazen and surly order.

His eyes fixated on a spot in the distance, refusing to meet mine which was always suspect when dealing with him given his usual determination to stare his opponents into cinders. "This is our fight. She'll just get in the way." Unwittingly Kaiba echoed my previous thoughts aloud with his next words; "And it'll be much worse than fighting Teleia was." He remarked, only now breaking the link of our hands so he could finish sealing up his Duel Disk once again and slipping the cuff back onto his wrist and arm. "Pegasus makes up a lot of Duel Monsters cards himself and if even half of the Dark Magician adjacent cards are based on things this one can actually do then it's a wide and varied arsenal. Wiping out their high attack monster cards isn't going to matter if he crushes us with spells and traps." He summarized as he busied himself with restarting the unit and navigating its interface.

Kaiba's knowledge on the subject didn't surprise me. As my most diligent rival I expected he was especially attentive to all cards he thought Yugi and I would consider as candidates for our deck and empowering the Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl had always been one of our most versatile strategies. He crossed his arms as he finished fitting the device and sneered. "Pegasus sure knows how to panda to consumer demand." Disapproval dripped from his words and there was a note of petulance in them. "He throws out a new Dark Magician themed card spell or trap card every quarter since there's so many mid-tier duelists running imitations of your deck. Now it's one of the most overpowered monsters in the game."

Did he realize the irony that he of all people was complaining about a card being too powerful? I doubted it, though it certainly amused me. Though he was ever determined to shout his personal beliefs across an arena when we dueled it was strange to hear Kaiba protest so openly about something so trivial as card releases

"Plus it's unoriginal." He concluded with clear distaste. At the very least I could understand his apparent abhorrence of imitators. After all, with just one glance at his attire no one could ever deny that Kaiba was indeed 'original' beyond all else.

"A deck should be personal; a reflection of the duelist who plays it." I agreed. The cards a true duelist chose for their deck said much about them, who they were and what they believed in.

"No. A deck should be powerful." He defiantly argued back. "But copying someone else's is just cutting corners."

I smirked at that. "You've just proven my point, Kaiba." Previously Kaiba's ire had been aimed at the non-present 'mid-tier duelists', but as I noted that his eyes narrowed on me. "You idolize power above all else and your deck is built with that belief at its foundation." I noted. Kaiba's decks brimmed with powerful dragons, machine-types and Light attributed monsters along with a dark undertow of viruses and germs that lurked beneath the surface. Those choices weren't coincidental, though he would loath to admit that.

"And?" Came Kaiba's monosyllabic retort.

"It's personal belief influences your card selection." I concluded, "Your deck is just as indervidual to you as ours is-" I stumbled on the word, correcting myself without missing a beat. "-was, to Yugi and I." With Kaiba by my side everything felt so alarmingly present and immediate that for a moment it was easy to forget that I'd left Duel Monsters and our deck behind.

"Hnh." Kaiba didn't bother to articulate this thoughts on the matter any more than that, but since decoding the meaning of that particular low sound I took the grunt of reluctant agreement as it was. The acceptance was bolstering so I leaned towards him, coaxing Kaiba to do the same if only to meet me in battle.

I wasn't surprised when a muscle in his cheek only twitched unsurely in response.

Pressing my tongue against his the night before had been a misstep. I'd seen that in his reaction alone. Our ideas of normal expressions of affection varied and that mistake had proven that falling back on whatever insights I'd reluctantly absorbed while Yugi watched the 'adult' video tape that Tristan had once borrowed from the video store for he and Joey wasn't a reliable strategy. Confident as Kaiba and I both were as duelists that didn't extend to this new and strange contest, and dueling with someone else's cards was hindering me.

I returned to what I knew, needing nothing but stillness from Kaiba to do so as I bridged the distance between us and pressed my nose against his. The act was as intimate to me as a kiss mouth to mouth was to him.

Down the length of his sharp nose Kaiba's eyes widened a fraction in confusion and he reared backward, his shoulders tensing momentarily as if to pull away even further before relaxing again as he rapidly acclimatized to the previously unfamiliar gesture.

The contact was tender and short-lived as the dawn concluded before us and after a few moments the two of us parted again in the mutual understanding that there was little time to further explore this newest arena.

We needed to be better prepared for what could potentially be a fast-approaching battle. Wordlessly I rose to my feet to reclaim the rest of the jewelry and clothing that Kaiba had stripped from my body the day before, while he turned his attention to the device on his arm and pursued the now familiar sight of his Duel Disk's holographic diagnostic screen.

We held an advantage and it was time to seize it.

* * *

**AN:** Kaiba's shoulder injury in this story was actually inspired by a scene towards the end of _Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie: Pyramid of Light._ In it Anubis tosses Kaiba across the stadium and despite landing on his back somehow it's Kaiba's shoulder/arm that ends up injured. I found that a bit strange, so it inspired me to think of reasons to justify the reaction.


	24. Chapter 24

**Yugi**

The smell wasn't getting to me as much anymore, other than the rush of sour stink that greeted me every time I stepped out of one of Kaiba's memories and back into the main corridor.

"Yugi, are you alright?"

I clutched the side of my head and rejoined Yami in the hallway, exhaling the odor from my nose and still trying to walk off Kaiba's super intense caffeine migraine from a few memories ago as the door I'd just sealed closed behind me. If he had headaches like that all the time it was no wonder he was so testy.

"Yeah I'm okay." I shot Yami back a smile, tucking Blue-Eyes back into my pocket as I did so. Being cooped up in that other room and not able to get out and lead the charge must have been frustrating but he was keeping it together so I would too.

"That one wasn't so bad." I added. It really hadn't been. I'd almost enjoyed reliving it actually.

We'd been back in Duelist Kingdom so I already knew the memory because I'd actually been there in person, but seeing it all from Kaiba's perspective changed things. He was so much taller than me that seeing the world through his eyes was a bit disorientating.

Once again the memory had placed me into his shoes, letting me feel everything he did - which was mainly focus and discomfort as he stepped down from his helicopter. It wasn't much of a greeting, but "I haven't seen you since our duel, Yugi." was as close as those got for Kaiba.

"Uhum. Oh! Here, your deck." I watch myself nod and then pull out the second deck that had been burning in my pocket since Yami's duel with what the gang had started calling 'Ghost Kaiba'. "I've been keeping it for you. Just think of it as a thank you for that duel you helped me win."

My first thought seeing this all again was 'Oh wow, was that really what I'd sounded like'? Hearing my voice back on a recording was always embarrassing. I thought I'd gotten over it since I'd used one of my Dad's old voice recorders to prep for my valedictorian speech, but watching myself and hearing it in person in one of Kaiba's memories was different.

"Thanks." Kaiba's appreciation was honest. I'd been able to tell at the time too from how simple his reply had been, but I could feel that even more clearly now. As he held up the deck a relief to a discomfort he hadn't even known he had washed over him. I'd thought back then it was a sign that he trusted me when he didn't shuffle through them to check on his cards - it'd given me hope that we could be friends. I'd been half wrong, and half right. Kaiba did trust me, even back then when he really had no reason to, but also he could already feel all three of his Blue-Eyes were safe and sound in his deck where they belonged just by holding it in his hand.

He was thankful for their return, but didn't know how to show it. "You'll be compensated for all of your trouble." Was what he decided on saying.

After that he tried to take off. His body ached and was stiff - every time he took a step toward the Pegasus's castle his muscles felt weak and the fabric of his clothing pulled painfully against raw spots on his back despite how loose the outfit was, by Kaiba's usual standards anyway. Back then Kaiba had seemed calm and put together but I could feel he was anything but as Joey got up into Kaiba's space and in Kaiba's mind volunteered himself to be the victim of his prototype Duel Disk test.

It was funny seeing that early model. Things sure had changed a lot. Back then it actually did look like a disk and had to be hurled around like a yo-yo.

Kaiba's arm got tired quickly after tossing it out onto the field a few times, but the ruthless pleasure he got from humiliating Joey in front of the rest of us energized him like a shot of pure adrenaline. Kaiba really liked riling up Joey for some reason. I could feel how much of a rush he got from it as he kept trash talking him but his insults hid something else underneath. He was waiting I'd realized; waiting to see Yami, maybe even trying to lure him out by making an example out of Joey. Joey threw out monster after monster, only to be cut down by Kaiba's Rabid Horseman and all the way through those turns Kaiba had kept watching me in his peripheral vision.

Kaiba had wanted to see him appear so badly, and even Kaiba himself thought that was unusual. It was just an uncontrolled feeling that he couldn't explain; like he was pulled to Yami and me. It irritated and fascinated him at the same time and was so strong I could still feel it even through his overwhelming concern for Mokuba.

I knew now what it was, even though Kaiba didn't.

In this memory it would be a while before we found out about Yami's past but already Kaiba had been feeling the invisible tether that linked us all together pulling at him. I had no idea he'd ever felt it so strongly, especially as early in our association as this was.

With each moment Yami and I hadn't switch places Kaiba had become surer and surer that he'd never existed in the first place; that either he was the manifestation of some sort of psychological breakdown, or Yami had been just some amazing opponent that he'd dreamed up to entertain his own wish for a challenge. I could feel it as the sharp edge of his curiosity was blunted by disappointment and for a minute there'd just been a cold feeling of absolute dismissal.

Kaiba wouldn't like it, but seeing all that stuff only made me more determined to make our friendship happen when we were all together again.

With the duel done he'd turned his back on us and stalked away, trash talking us in case he was wrong about Yami not existing but also feeling hopeless at the same time because he thought he was right.

The thing was I remembered that day just as well as Kaiba did.

Our partnership had been rough around the edges back then but I could remember how the strong courageous presence inside of me had edged closer and closer to the surface to watch Kaiba duel, wanting to see if he'd managed to banish away his darkness now that Kaiba was awake again. As Kaiba trashed Joey I'd been able to feel how angry it'd made the spirit; because Joey was our friend and Kaiba was toying with him, and also because he'd wanted Kaiba to be better than that. He knew Kaiba wouldn't agree to come along with us even before I did, but he didn't want to see he him leave without saying something to him.

"Kaiba, we may not agree with each others methods, but at least we understand that Pegasus must be stopped." They were Yami's words, but I'd said them. Maybe Kaiba could sense that, since he actually turned around one final time to reply.

"I hope you succeed in rescuing your brother." I added.

I guess that was confusing. Kaiba wasn't sure which one of us he was talking to, or if there even were multiple people to talk to. "And I hope you succeed in your ventures." he replied, aiming that at me. "Lets just hope our paths don't cross again before this is all over." he concluded for Yami, just in case.

In a way the memory had made me nostalgic for those early days – out on an adventure with my best friends, meeting all the other duelists and discovering the secrets of the Millennium Items.

"It was back in Duelist Kingdom" I told the holographic Yami, grinning at him as he continued leaning casually against the doorway. We'd really been through so much since then.

Yami's expression instantly switched from curiosity to a troubled frown. It was the sort he wore the night before we were about to duel and the fate of the world was hanging in the balance. He paused for a long time before replying and when he did his voice was solemn and slightly self-depreciating which wasn't something that was normal for him at all.

"I'm sorry you had to revisit that day."

I blanked on what he was talking about.

Duelist Kingdom had happened for all the wrong reasons and Grandpa's soul had been at stake but despite that I had mostly warm memories of it. Meeting Mai and Mako, watching Joey win his first duel all on his own and earn his Red-Eyes Black Dragon and lots of other memories too. Of course there had also been less pleasant ones, like running away from giant fake boulders and being trapped in the Dark Magician card by the Spirit of the Millennium Ring, and having to call back Yami's attack when he-

"-Oh! No it wasn't that." Yami's eyebrows jumped up in surprise as I waved my hands in front of me to ward away the idea. Actually, that memory would have made a lot more sense than the one I'd seen but it hadn't come up yet. Maybe Kaiba didn't think about it all that much, or as much compared to Yami anyway.

"You still think about that duel, huh?" I asked quietly. I could empathize. I would never forget it either.

It'd been scary. I'd waited until the last moment to call the attack off and I was so afraid that I'd stepped in too late. I'd never have been able to forgive myself if Kaiba really had fallen off the castle wall and died.

"I do." Yami admitted, shifting his weight between his feet slightly.

If alternative universes did exist and there was one of them that I'd been too late in what would that world look like? I couldn't even imagine how different things would have played out if there had been no Kaiba around. Yami and I would never have had the chance to see how Pegasus's Millennium Eye worked in their exhibition match afterwards, and without Kaiba that would mean there would have been no Battle City, no trump card against Marik's dark side, no Virtual Worlds, no Grand Prix – the list went on and on. Duelists would probably even still sit down to duel, like in the old days.

Now that I was thinking about it Kaiba had in some unintentional way been pushing us through almost every step of the way since the very beginning.

Yami - the real Yami, so Atem, had called Kaiba 'a valued opponent'. I hadn't really understood why. I'd guessed it was because dueling him had made Yami stronger; strong enough to fulfill his destiny and complete his journey. I think I'd just figured out what he'd really meant and if I was right then he'd really downplayed that title.

"Though, I wonder why that is." Yami continued, his sombre tone change into something more inquisitive. "I'm made from Kaiba's mind, and I doubt he thinks about it at all."

I laughed awkwardly, feeling a drop of sweat creep down my forehead. I didn't think we'd ever get that answer. "The one take away I'll have from all of this is Kaiba's mind works in weird ways." I offered, trying to lighten up the mood.

Yami blinked at me slowly before agreeing with a faint grin. "That's true." I beamed it right back, loving the familiar camaraderie of our partnership even if this Yami wasn't totally real.

"It's kind of cool to see through Kaiba's eyes. Sort of like playing a character in a video ga-"

"GAAAROOOOOOOOUUUUUU!"

I didn't get to finish. I barely had time to duck as Yami lunged forward to put his hand on top of my head. His finger tips faded out as they left the bounds of his room but his arm stretched far enough to forced us both down to lie prone on the floor. I sure missed having his reaction time. It was a real life saver when scary things started happening.

The thunderous roar echoed through the hallway. It was so loud both of us had to cover our ears with our hands and I pinched my eyes closed against the volume as it echoed around my mind. It shook the corridor and everything in it, including all of the doors. There was too many noises to keep track of - smashes, rattling and a lot of banging as a current of bright white electricity zapped across the doorways over our heads. It crackled loudly enough for me to hear it and was so close it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end even more as it arced from one door to the next. The way everything was rumbling and shaking made it seem like an earthquake, but the bouncing lightning was closer to a freak storm.

"What is this?" I shouted over the opening and slamming of doors. Ow, it really didn't help the memory of Kaiba's coffee headache still pummeling brain.

Yami's teeth were gritted as he shook his head. "I don't know."

"Kuuu-Umph!"

We stayed crushed to the floor as a door close to us exploded off of its hinges and went flying in a trail of splinters. Further down the hall way I heard that same sound again as another one must have done the same thing. I closed my eyes tighter against the tiny bits of wood and kept raining down until the noises began to stop and I could finally pull away my hands from our ears.

I opened one eye up and watched Yami as he clambered back up onto his feet. "Is it over?"

"Yes." he nodded, but the way his eyes flew wide open as he looked around made me regret asking. I sat up and rubbed the back of my head as Yami leaned down to help me stand.

"W-what happened?" The corridor had survived more or less in tact but all of the doors I'd sealed had been thrown back open and to make matters worse I could count several new ones that hadn't been broken before but now were. Some swayed on their hinges from the left over force, while a few others had been splintered or completely ruined. My heart was in my throat but it was the noise ringing in my ears that was more important. "That sound." I turned to Yami and he nodded. We'd both recognized it.

It sounded like a Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

"You two are loud." Quipped a little voice that made me jump.

The door to the memory in the orphanage was open again and the Kaiba from it stood in the doorway. He shivered in his slightly too short pajamas and every one of his breaths was visible as cold air from the room blew out into the corridor.

Maybe he knew what had just happened? I jogged over to him and bent down slightly to get to his eye-level. "Hey again, Kaiba -"

His gloomy blue eyes watched me skeptically as he muffled a cough with his sleeve.

" - Er, Seto?" I corrected, trying his first name instead. It felt a bit weird to say for some reason. At this age he wasn't technically 'Kaiba' at all yet so I pushed that feeling to one side and continued. "Do you know what's going on?" Why had all the doors been busted? Going through them all and trying to seal them again wouldn't do any good if they could blast back open again all on their own.

"Why are you outside of your room?" Yami also questioned from his doorway. "Yugi already sealed your door once." His tone was sharper than I would have gone with when speaking to a kid. It almost sounded like he was telling the little guy off.

Even though this was a mini Kaiba, it was still Kaiba. I expected him to get sarcastic or snappy, but instead he crossed his arm sulkily and moodily stared upwards at Yami, as if he was put out. I looked as though he didn't like being told off. Or at least, not by Yami.

"You're kinda slow, huh?" 'Seto' muttered sourly.

Yami's stare was intense. He eyed Kaiba just as warily as he would have if he was ten years older and gloating at him from across a dueling area, which only made this Seto cross his arms tighter around his body and subtly shrink away.

"Did you really think sealing them all yourself was gonna work?" The little Kaiba added sullenly, hitching his thin shoulders in a small shrug. "You're never gonna get outta here unless you fix the _real_ problem."

'Real problem'? I sighed slightly. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. I should have guessed. 'Kaiba' and 'easy' didn't go together.

Yami put his hands on his hips and gazed down at Seto in disapproval. The little Kaiba tilted his head to the side and stared back, trying to match Yami's intensity. I wondered why he was being so full on with this Seto? It was almost like he was suspicious. Instantly I missed sharing my body with Yami - just being able to think that question at him and understand his reasoning as if it was my own.

"What are you not telling us?" He sternly demanded.

"Nothing." Seto snapped back.

"You know something." Yami pressed, not relenting at all.

"Are you saying I'm a liar?"

The other advantage of sharing a body was while inside the Millennium Puzzle was I could have easily tuned them as they'd started to argue. Yami sometimes got a bit of a kick out of arguments, I think he saw them as another sort of game to be won, but they made me feel uncomfortable.

"You aren't telling us everything." He insisted.

Based on the participants I already knew this one was going to go nowhere fast. I guessed I'd go and check things out while they went at it.

"Why should I? I don't have to tell you anything. I don't even like you!"

I hopped over a big puddle of ooze and easily side stepped a thick glob that dripped from the ceiling. Despite how gross it was I was getting used to this stuff. A ripple of sludge parted around me like I had my own private bubble and Yami and Kaiba's bickering became softer as I walked further down the corridor and peeped through the doorways, checking off in my mind all the ones I'd previously sealed that had now blown open again and the new ones that had been damaged. Even if they hadn't been reopened I would have recognized each of the doors as I passed them by. The older memories were behind weathered doors that still looked plainer by comparison even after being healed by Mokuba's Blue-Eyes, while the ones in the Kaiba mansion had freshly polished door handles like someone had just cleaned them. There were so many new doors to seal up now. I'd need to start again if I had any hope of helping Kaiba, but where to even begin?

"We're trying to help!"

"I don't need your help! I didn't ask for it!"

I listened to them far behind me as an especially large lump of slime skittered out of my way. It couldn't touch me thanks to Blue-Eyes but the consistency of the sludge was getting thicker and thicker the further I walked until it almost blotted out the walkway lights completely. That worried me. I was deeper into the hallway than ever before and the darkness here was getting creepy so I turned around to walk back but was stopped in my tracks.

One door was still closed and it didn't look like any of the others.

The doors to the Kaiba mansion memories had been well kept and fancy but they couldn't hold a candle to it. It was a gilded wooden double door covered from the bottom to the top in something that surprised me but really shouldn't have in retrospect; hieroglyphs.

Despite being closed up tight Anubis's magical goop was forcing itself through every place it could in the strange Egyptian door, squeezing ooze between the seam of the double door and spilling underneath the bottom of the threshold to pool in the corridor. Black bubbles grew and burst, caught on a slight current that flowed towards me, leaking out across the hallway. A minute ago I'd convinced myself I'd gone noseblind to the smell of the gunk but suddenly the horrible stench was ten times worse as I approached the door for a better look.

"Is this where it's all coming from?" I whispered to myself as I covered my face with my sleeve.

"Hey!" I called back, my voice sound a bit like a cartoon character's as I pinched my nose and shouted down the walkway.

"- And I don't want it!" Seto's mouth snapped shut and whatever Yami was about to say got cut off as they turned to see where I'd gone to. It looked like it didn't matter the age or place, once those two got into it they both had tunnel vision.

I pointed to the strange door. "What's behind this door?"

Yami's dueling face slipped away as he leaned out of the door way to get a better look at what I was pointing at. He squinted in the darkness, but I could see the moment he picked out the door in the hallway's shadows. His eyes opened extra wide as they landed on the hieroglyphs.

"Does it open?" The little Kaiba deadpanned, like there was nothing spooky about it being there at all.

Two handles coated with gunge jutted out of either side of double doors and running between them was a long cord of thick rope dripping with ooze. It hitched around one handle and then snaked back on itself in a set of spiraling loops to bind around the other. The end of the knot vanished into a heavy clay seal that had the faint outline of something marked into it that I couldn't see properly in the low light. I tested the handles and the door rattled but there was no way it was budging with the clay seal keeping it shut. Sand and dust came away on my hands as I pulled them back. "No." I answered, rubbing my palms together to dislodge the dirt.

"Then how should I know, idiot." Seto concluded, unimpressed.

Yami shot him a scolding look. "You'll show Yugi respect."

"I don't respect people who ask dumb questions." The little Kaiba sneered, wavering between looking like a sulky kid and a grumpy teenager.

"I think it's where all of _this_ is coming" I added, pointing a finger at the muck. Now that I was standing at it's origin my eyes could pick out several thick streams of goo almost completely hidden by darkness ebbing out from the black pool collecting under the ancient door. "We need to get inside." I concluded and glanced back to Yami who sharply nodded at me as though he'd been thinking exactly the same thing – like we were still connected together. The nostalgia made me smile.

I guess I'd have to open it up.

**Kaiba**

I flicked away my cigarette butt and swapped out my Kaiser Vorse Raider for another trap instead. My cards flickered slightly as I revised my selection. They'd get the job done, just so long as the Pharaoh didn't screw things up again by trying to jump the damn line and cut in over me like he had in the desert.

Atem was too busy prepping his own hand as I glanced back at him.

His game face was on so I could tell he was taking this seriously but watching him chew through a handful of dates at the same time ruined it, even as his eyes never left his cards. Was eating even necessary here? I was alive so I likely needed to, but I had a duel to win. Until then ignoring such base biological imperatives like hunger was my stock and trade. Plus just the idea of chowing down on the sickly sweet fruit made my teeth ache. I could practically taste the sugar overload from here.

Watching him now felt weird.

That was farcical. If anything I had more reasons than ever to keep an eye on him, but there were too many variables at play. Was I now obliged to team up with him against 'Mahad' or did I screw that and duel for myself like always? That was my preference, even though I suspected this was going to devolve into another irritating tag-team situation.

The dawn light glinted off of his rings as Atem flexed his fingers to replaced one final card, then his eyes darted up from his hand to look at me. "Are you ready?" He asked, like he had doubts.

I scoffed at the question. "I'm always ready." Who did he think he was talking to? I was the one who'd just defeated Sphinx Teleia in a single move while he'd been too out of it sweating on the floor to even lift up his own head. If anything I should have been asking him that. Isis said he'd be fixed by now and he looked better but there was only so much recovering anyone could do in a single night, even the Pharaoh. It looked like no one sent had him that memo though. Dripping confidence he sauntered over to my side and pointed a finger towards the cards I was holding.

"Let me see what you're planning."

That aggravated me. Was he was really expecting me to show him my hand? If we were going to work together in our next battle then it was logical, but the idea of openly flashing my cards at him fought against every instinct I had.

Atem didn't move or blink, he just stared bright-eyed at me and waited for me to react like this was some kind of test.

"You first." I grunted.

It was stupid to be so guarded of my cards. I knew that. I had no justifiable reason for holding back, but if I was going to show him then I damn well wanted to see his first.

Atem dipped his head and slowly blinked. The gold light of the holograms caught on the angles of his diadem and the smooth finish of arm bands he was wearing around his biceps as he spread the cards in his hand out like a fan and stretched them out toward me. With our shared deck running on the lean side it made sense to play what was left more carefully but just one monster card seemed over-confident even by his standards. Granted, it was one of the Pharaoh's favorites. That wasn't the card that drew my eye though.

"Why Mystic Box?" I questioned. The other cards I got – I could see their potential applications, but Mystic Box was an outlier. Atem glanced down at the card briefly before aiming a pointed look back up at my face.

"If Mahad truly is under the influence of another of Anubis's minions then our goal must be to capture our opponent without destroying it." His words were toneless but I knew a warning when I heard one. I crossed my arms and turned away from the pompous blowhard. "My palace has a master interrogator." Atem continued, though now his voice turned stern. "He'll be more than capable of extracting Anubis's whereabouts out of it."

A 'master interrogator', huh? I knew first hand just how useful people like that were to keep around but I didn't see the Pharaoh as the sort to keep that kind of an employee on his payroll. Then again, he hadn't always been as 'noble' as he was pretending to be these days. Yugi was probably in some way responsible for that. Atem's knock-off form of virtuousness was fairly close to his own.

"In fact you may find him familiar." He added, this time with a teasing lilt to his voice.

"Whatever." I didn't bother to ask him to explain the big joke because I didn't care. Knowing this place it probably meant someone else from real life re-cast in Egyptian cosplay was doing the job. Instead I copied his previous move and spread the holographic cards I'd prepared out in my hand for him to look at. My Duel Disk had enough problems to worry about so I'd turned down the brightness of its projections to conserve energy. On the lower power setting the blue glow only reached far enough to bounce across the skin of my fingers, making them look even paler by comparison as Atem nonchalantly placed his hand on my wrist.

He quirked his eyebrow at me as he inspected my selection. "Determined to become a dragon again so soon?" The know-it-all taunted with an amused smirk.

"Tch."

Polymerization had gotten into my head more than I'd ever give it credit for. Being an actual dragon had been intoxicating. Every time I thought back on it the urge to slash something apart with my own talons, beat my own wings or fry an enemy out of existence with my own breath hit me like a sledgehammer. After my holograms got over themselves and went back to acting the way they were programed to it would be impossible, but with all of this magical crap going on and the card effects acting however they damn well pleased there was a temptation to try and re-create that experience with my cards. This combination of Tyrant Wing and Burst Breath would get me half way there but it'd only ever be a pale imitation of the real thing. It didn't matter what this Mahad guy looked like, if he was a Dark Magician then facing off against him was my Blue-Eyes's right. No monster deserved vengeance against that arrogant finger-wagging dunce more than my dragons and pitting my signature beast against the Pharaoh's was just how it was done – anything else would be off-brand. As much as I wanted to make that happen I couldn't risk it and though putting together this substandard rip-off was an insult to my Blue-Eyes White Dragons it would have to do while all of them were trapped in my graveyard.

"Kaiba." Atem interrupted.

"What?"

He looked at me like he was trying to see into my brain before eventually shrugging casually. The modern gesture looked out of place coming from someone dressed the way he was. "You were lost in thought."

"So your first move is to call out my name for no reason?" I snarked before scoffing. I'd left his question hanging; that was why. "I get it, you don't like being ignored."

The Pharaoh opened his big mouth like he was going to argue and then stopped before saying anything, frowning thoughtfully instead. "I suppose not." He eventually concluded, like it was somehow news to him.

"Well get over it." I guessed most of his toadies didn't have the luxury of ignoring him, since he was their king. Blanking him was probably a capital offense, or some passive aggressive form of minor treason. Such nonsense. With a flick of my fingers my holographic cards slid back together into one tidy pile, ready for Isis's call when she got back from playing scout. That should be any time now. "If we're done flashing our cards then you'd better be ready to-" My sentence died in the air as I glanced back at the Pharaoh.

He'd pursed his lips together tightly until they jutted out slightly. Instead of being annoyingly quirked at me in a half-baked taunt or tightly drawn towards the bridge of his nose like his game face his dark eyebrows were now subtly curved downwards in a U-shape.

"-Are you pouting?" My voice came out every bit as incredulous as I felt and I could barely suppress my own face from pulling stupefied frown. I tried covering it up with a scowl and could tell the half-and-half expression I was making was probably just as as idiotic as his based on how uncomfortably the muscles in my face pulled against each other.

His expression didn't change even as he haughtily protested "Of course not."

Screw holding hands, making out and nose kissing – this was now officially the strangest thing yet.

"Stop it." I demanded. "It makes your face look stupid."

Trying to parse the difference between the regal pomp of the King of Games, my semi-unbeatable eternal rival, and the face he was currently pulling was scrambling my brain. He wasn't allowed to look that – what was the word? Petulant? Normal? Human? Some combination of those terms.

"As does yours." He countered.

Damn it. Our whole dynamic was a duel. Where did he get off with changing the rules of our game half way through by looking like that? Now I wanted to kiss him again - just to wipe that moronically winsome look off of his face. As humiliating as it was 'cute aggression' was a well documented neurological phenomenon and I fully blamed that for the sudden and intense urge to maul him. I pulled him against my body with more force than I'd intended and bit back a hiss as the impact accidentally rocked our hips together. Atem used the residual momentum to turn the tables and pivoted me slightly so I was up against a tree. Apparently it didn't take much to get him in the mood. I could feel that already. One of my hands wound around to the small of his back to keep him balanced and a matching one of his reached up to hook around the back of my head. With his torso pressed up to mine I could feel his heart pounding in his chest just like mine was we pulled each other into a near kiss. He slowly leaned in to touch our lips together again until I snaked my hands down to his hips to push him off of me. It seemed like getting interrupted was going to be a running theme.

"Heads up." With a nod I directed his eye line over to the oasis's entrance. Atem followed it, humming as he spotted the shadows of Isis and his Dark Magician creeping around a corner of the canyon walls and into sight.

"It's time." He agreed. The hot flush on his cheeks cooled off in an instant as he poured on the cement of his dueling face and stepped back from me.

"Hnh." I did the same, straightening my spine and standing clear of the tree. "Don't make that face again." I'd meant it to be a warning but it didn't come out that way. I could count on one hand the few things in the world that actually revved my biological engine and giving my most challenging opponent the keys to the car was a bad move.

"Very well." Atem replied. It was a statement, but with an upward inflection at the end as if he meant it as a question too.

I turned back to get the first look at our next potential opponent and ignored his sly smirk my peripheral vision.

**A** **ndro Sphinx**

Sphinx Teleia was dead.

Though the source of her defeat had sapped the most powerful beasts from the Master's command that was not the extent of her loss. So too had she imparted to the Master a first Death Counter in the aftermath of her demise. The addition made securing victory for the Master ever harder but I did not begrudge Seto Kaiba for his victory over her after her fatuous attempt to molest him. Had he remained in the body of a drake perhaps Sphinx Teleia would not have instigated her own destruction by accosting him, but it was too late to dwell on such things.

Truly the only advantage of his return to human form was that the unforseen death had earned their cohort a second Death Counter. It had been an unexpected way to perish. I had watched them plummet from the sky to the earth. The bulk of a beast's body had cushioned the Pharaoh's fall but in his draconic form Seto Kaiba's neck and back had been broken, the bones protruding beneath the scales at unkind angles. Mahad's consciousness had been disquieted by the worrisome sight until the dragon had defused, and for a single second so too had I been.

I was reluctant to harmonize any further with the Magician for fear of losing my thoughts within his own, however the time had come to play a new role – the role of the Pharaoh's trusted guardian finally reuniting with his young king after days in the desert hunting Sphinx Teleia.

Landing softly upon the ground and released the spell that bound me to my avian form. It had served its purpose well and even unexpectedly shielded me from Teleia's fate. While assuming the deceptive form of a 'Pigeon Token' I had no offensive prowess and as such had been guarded against the virulent effect of Seto Kaiba's 'Crush Card Virus'.

Returned to human form my host's sandals sank into the gritty sand that lined the belly of the great snaking canyon that acted as the single thoroughfare between the oasis and the desert wastes beyond. The entrance to the pass was an unassuming thing; little more than a thin gap in two looming walls of mountainous red rock. It was barely large enough for two horseman to ride through side by side and near invisible to the naked eye unless one knew where to look. As the Pharaoh's protector and tutor in the ways of magic my host was one of few initiated in its location and so it was a surprise when the softly curving silhouette of a woman met my eyes standing further along the pass as though waiting for me.

Teleia's liberated host lingered patiently in the canyon for me as I approached.

Her body was sculpted demurely, her hands folded respectfully in her lap, but something in her eyes glimmered with joy as I neared her. Her enthusiasm was misplaced. A fact she was still unaware of. Teleia's refusal to intermingle her mind with the priestess's own was foolhardy, yet a blessing. Without the insight of my deceased 'comrade' there was no way for the priestess to know that while I wore his face, I was not the man I appeared to be.

Mahad roused from his pensive deliberation at the corner of our mind and became observant once more was we drew closer to the priestess.

Though it was small and subdued an attractive smile curved her refined lips upward at the corners as the distance between us shortened. It was a gentle expression and one I suspected she reserved only for my host and he alone. It was quite beautiful, as was she, now that she had been freed from Teleia's distortion.

"Mahad." My host's name uttered low in a soft reverent whisper was her first word.

With an elegant step forward she brought us closer together than I would have willed and the priestess slipped her hands into my own, simply holding them between us and squeezing them in some wordless expression of affection. It would seem there was more to the relationship of these priests than I had been led to believe.

I returned the gesture, mirroring her muted yet nevertheless very real and present warmth with whatever I could muster of my own, lest she become suspicious.

_**"Do her no harm."** _

It was the first time my host had sought to commune with me so directly.

His tone was heavy and solemn despite being a wordless manifestation of mere concentrated thought. It carried with it a weight, the terrible burden of knowing that despite now whispering in my ear Mahad was still helpless to stop me. He could not regain control while my essence polluted his body and it would bend to my will regardless of his own.

I decided that I would placate him, if only because he was a useful tool.

_"She is not my concern."_

I had no need to keep our peace, but nor did I have any interest in the priestess now that her time as Teleia's vessel had come to an end. My words set the magician's mind at rest for a moment and the pressure of his presence became lesser.

"Isis." I greeted, trading my name for hers.

With that mild smile still ever present she separated our hands and took a step backward. A respectable distance befitting two priests opening between us once more. This too, I copied. Whatever moment had just been shared was subtly veiled like a dagger being returned to its sheath and now she was the Pharaoh's most exalted priestess once more; dutiful and composed despite the disarray Teleia had made of her.

"It is pleasing to see your body returned to you. How fairs the Pharaoh?" I led with, playing the role of the boy king's beloved champion once more.

I already knew yet maintained a guise of ignorance. As a Magical Pigeon I had been watching over their fellowship all night, but she could not know of that.

In truth there was another question I found more pressing, but one that would seem suspect to ask first. How had she known to come here and wait for me? To my surprise my host offered the answer willingly. He concluded that she must have seen it before, using the prophetic magic of the Millennium Necklace that she once protected. Such insight could foil my ploy, but the knowledge did not dissuade me from pursuing my plot as Mahad hoped. Visions of such a nature were brief, fractured things. There was no reason to assume the priestess was aware of my duplicity given her reactions to me thus far.

Her reply was steady as she stepped aside, one slim arm beckoning me onward toward the heart of the oasis and Pharaoh both. "Fever from a wound befell him but it has broken now." I inclined my head and strode forward down the path as her motion bid me, the priestess easily falling into step at my side and we began toward the site they had last bedded down upon. "The Other Seto has injuries but none are great or worrisome." She added as our footsteps harmonized. "I was doubtful of his intentions when we all stood together outside of the throne room-" the priestess continued, "But I am coming to believe that my distrust was misplaced."

I nodded and said nothing, simply letting us fall into a natural silence. From what I knew of the pair it was their habit to simply co-exist quite comfortably without needing to fill the air with inane platitudes. We did this for several more steps before the priestess spoke once more.

"I sense Chisisi is healthy too." It was a short, innocuous thing to say. The name was one I did not recognize from Mahad's memories, nor his thoughts. No image readily came to his mind. I could not formulate an appropriate response without proper the context.

_Who is Chisisi?_

I cast that query inside of my host's consciousness, receiving an answer readily and with little interrogation. According to Mahad, the name belonged to a horse that had fallen into the Pharaoh's favor in recent days. No doubt it was the very same one I had seen roaming back towards the palace as I had flown over the desert.

"That pleases me to hear. Though he is unpredictable the Pharaoh enjoys him very much." I answered, repeating Mahad's thought on the matter and sparing myself the effort of re-phrasing them.

Isis held my gaze searchingly for a long moment and then her eyes escaped my own. The priestess inclined her head in agreement without further comment, putting the topic to rest with a reaction that was ambiguous by even the lofty standards of her norm. The uncanny sensation of having said something wrong rippled over me with a strength and surety that could only be imparted by the reproachful countenance of an austere woman. Mahad had never misled me before, yet I wondered if my oddly obliging host may have taken advantage of my confidence in him.

A tranquil hush embraced us and the illusion of a companionable quietude settled as we walked, our pace purposeful yet sedate and growing sedater by the moment as the priestess slowed. The decline in speed was deliberate, yet unobtrusive.

"You are unhurried." I noted, forbidding the suspicion I felt from my host's voice. His trust in her was absolute, as mine needed to appear to be.

The priestess nodded back, her reply soft and guileless. "The Pharaoh and the Other Seto need time to prepare themselves." It was an odd way to phrase her intent but I understood it no less. She wished them the time and privacy needed to settle after the long night before.

I had observed from the treetops as their association had rapidly escalated to something neither boy seemed sure of how to broach, despite their shared willingness to do so. The development had been unexpected as the pair had done little but row at every given opportunity since my watch began. Mahad felt their actions unwise, akin to attempting to build a grand temple upon quicksand, yet somehow also inevitable if his lack of true surprise was a measure to be judged by.

With he priestess's statement left to float on the breeze we proceeded in silence once more. The trek continued at a stroll, the red hue of the canyon walls and sands parting under the occasional assault of a shrub or palm as the verdant greenery that had at first appeared in solitary patches grew in number and vibrance as we very slowly neared the oasis's heart. Though the priestess at my side seemed relaxed and at peace there was a tension in her aura that my host's more magically attuned body was able to sense, if not see. For all the moments she spent in my presence it did not relent. Only when the distant figures of the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba by the oasis's waters came into our shared view did it ease.

In tandem they turned to behold us as the priestess and I approached them. A half-eaten date in the Pharaoh's hand was cast aside into the thick greenery of the surrounding brush as Seto Kaiba scoffed at and uncrossed his arms. He watched me carefully, while the Pharaoh waited expectantly.

"My Pharaoh." I sank to one knee before him, dutifully bowing my host's head toward the earth, as was his custom.

It was the norm for the Pharaoh to quickly bid his trusted friend to rise when met with such a gesture and it struck Mahad as abnormal when his usual courtesy was not extended. Where normally the Pharaoh's kindly acknowledgement would be there was only a thick silence. Cautiously I raised my eyes from the ground to see the cause of the delay and was surprised to find only one set of eyes were upon me. The oppressive blue stare of Seto Kaiba tracked my every movement behind a stoic glower while the Pharaoh paid me no mind at all - looking instead towards his priestess.

"What is your verdict, Isis?" He asked her, his voice calm yet weighted with an air of authority that had gone astray more recently while cavorting with the taller boy.

The priestess's reply was simple and solemn. "It is as suspected."

A flame of wrath warmed the Pharaoh's gaze and as he turned back to face me - the heat in it scalded, branding me with understanding.

They were no fools. They knew of my deception.


	25. Chapter 25

**An** **dr** **o** **Sphinx**

Seto Kaiba smirked down at me, viciously. "It's time to duel." He announced to the oasis. The Pharaoh nodded in agreement as the arm of his pale companion lashed out towards the water. "Kaiser Sea Horse -" The depths of the oasis at my back erupted into a pillar of water as a great blue and purple sea creature sprang from its depths in a torrential rush of waves and spray.

"Celtic Guardian -" The Pharaoh shouted too with every bit of his pale companion's ferocity. The greenery in front of me shifted swiftly. In a chorus of rustling leaves a shadow that was neither palm nor shrub rushed forward from its veiled vantage point in a whirl of green and brown.

"Attack!" The two bellowed in unison, thrusting their hands towards me and spiriting their servants into action.

An ambush?

With the flash of a silver blade the Celtic Guardian bared down upon me in a great lunge that drove me back towards the water, until the gold-tipped trident of the Kaiser Sea Horse struck a blunt blow to my back that staggered me back towards the Guardian's sword.

"Be careful of Mahad's body." The Pharaoh lectured Seto Kaiba, as if the foreigner himself had landed the blow.

"Tch! I know." He argued back, the discord of the exchange contrary to the efficiency with which they had executed their strategy.

I had not prepared to face them yet, but trapped between sword and spear I had little choice but to retaliate. The Master's magic surged to my defense, a bleak black festering lump of a contraption bubbling onto my arm like a large boil, and with it the first of Mahad's spells answered my call as I put a newly formed card into play.

"Thousand Knives!" A hail of daggers rippled outward from my body in every direction. The Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba pulled their arms up to shield their faces and were driven away from me as the wave of blades rained upon them.

"Celtic Guardian, protect Isis!" The Pharaoh commanded.

The pressure of the Guardian's blade and the blockage of my path forward vanished as the Guardian leapt away from me and back to the priestess's side in one powerful jump, stopping only to cover her with the heavy folds of his cloak. I side-stepped the spear of the Kaiser Sea Horse as it lunged to attack and was thankful for my host's magically heightened reflexes. My escape was short lived, putting only several men's worth of distance between me and my foes before the magical Knives finished their flurry.

The Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba lowered their arms from their faces and glanced each other over for a moment, seeing that neither had been damaged. Seto Kaiba was the first to recover his stance and threw his head back in deep mocking laughter.

"Mhahaha. One thousand knives and not a single hit? Your aim is lousy!" He taunted, a dark amusement playing on his features. "I was hoping for better."

The Pharaoh was not so easily deceived. He frowned down at the Knives that had embedded themselves into the earth at his feet as they vanished into nothingness. "Or perhaps not." He countered. Seto Kaiba's malicious glee lessened into a wary irritation as he glanced side-long at the shorter boy.

"Isis -" the Pharaoh called back without turning away from me. Behind him the Celtic Guardian shook several daggers free from his cape and pulled it back to unveil the unharmed priestess, much to my host's relief. Seto Kaiba shifted at the Pharaoh's side, enough to draw his gaze for but a moment. Sharp blue eyes imparted a message to their red counterpart and in reply there was a curious perk of his eyebrow and then a decisive hum. "- Stay back with the Celtic Guardian." He concluded.

The priestess inclined her head respectfully. "As you wish, Pharaoh."

He nodded with an air of finality and darted his eyes back toward Seto Kaiba. "I'm going first." The Pharaoh added, smirking at him.

Despite the paler boy's ire-filled stare he only crossed his arms in disinterested acquiescence. "Get to it then." Seto Kaiba grunted.

Even without his companion's help the Pharaoh was a devastating opponent to engage in open combat with, but it mattered little. If I did not press my attack the Master's punishment would be far crueler than any that these boys could inflict upon me.

"Dark Hole." I summoned Mahad's spell with a shout, conjuring a mote of pitch blackness no larger than a grain of sand and bidding it destroy everything in sight as my magic made it swell and twist. In my hands it grew to the size of an egg, and then to be as large as a skull - pulsating with the lustre of a dark star.

The Pharaoh steeled himself with a confident yell. "White Hole!"

No sooner had the Pharaoh declared his spell than a whirlwind of pale magic burst into life, spiraling around the growing void of my Dark Hole to sap it into non-existence. The two spells drank in each other's power and negated one another as they shrank away into nothingness and were both destroyed.

"I see you've helped yourself to Mahad's spells." The Pharaoh commented as he addressed me once more, "Even the obscure ones." Despite his words and the clear understanding that I had stolen this magician's tricks his stance reflected only surety and enjoyment.

"I'm glad." He added belatedly, his gaze unflinching as he trapped me beneath it. At those words Seto Kaiba's exaggerated boredom quickly reshaped itself into a reluctant curiosity. The grin the Pharaoh had aimed at Seto Kaiba remained in place, though became darker in nature as it was aimed toward me. "As his Pharaoh I've often wondered if Mahad obliges me by holding himself back in our duels." Seto Kaiba's expression became attentive once more with each new word the Pharaoh spoke. "Now I'll have my answer." The Pharaoh concluded, tilting his chin upward in challenge as he beckoned me to do my worst. "Pit his magic against mine and attack with everything he has!"

A smirk of approval cut across the lips of the taller boy standing behind him. As though by sense alone the Pharaoh reacted to it; adjusting his stance to stand ever more erect and puffing out his chest despite the fact he had no way of having seen Seto Kaiba's appreciative leer. The rapt expression lasted for only a moment before the paler boy schooled it instead back into a boredom that was clearly false.

The Pharaoh leaned back, one hand placed upon his hip as he pushed them forward into a pose both arrogant and self-assured. His confidence told me without words that he had conviction his spellcraft would triumph, and from the back of my mind Mahad echoed this. Though well matched at the prime of his power the long days of flying without nourishment or rest had left my host's body far from the pinnacle of its abilities and unlike Teleia I was not so foolish as to ignore that fact. Even if they continued to battle me one by one defeating the Pharaoh and then Seto Kaiba as well was clearly impossible for now. As it was I would need an enhancement simply to avoid being captured.

"Magic Formula." I beckoned, a brown leather grimoire bound by lock and key appearing in the air before me.

"Magic Jammer!" The Pharaoh eagerly parried, tensing the muscles of his legs and flexing his arms outwards as he rebuffed my cast in an overly athletic manner that urged the muscles of his arms to rise up against his skin. His attention flickered to the side and he tilted his head subtly to check if Seto Kaiba was still watching. The target of his ostentatious display only narrowed his eyes at the fugitive glance, but the light in his cold blue gaze danced in enthusiasm.

The thought of being the potential victim of their attacks while they performed for each other in this strange courtship ritual entertained my host – enough so that I could feel his muted amusement as Magic Jammer conjured ring of magical runes encircling the Magic Formula, turning it a blazing red as columns of thick purple smoke erupted from its cover. I cursed him and his derisive spectation as the tome disintegrated into ash before my eyes.

"Great. You can counter him." Seto Kaiba droned sarcastically. He uncrossed his arms and his stare slid from me to the Pharaoh. "Are you gonna get serious now?" He questioned tonelessly.

Without even a backward glance the Pharaoh grinned, with a soft "Aha." of amusement as his reply. "Am I boring you, Kaiba? Tag in at any time." The Pharaoh added, tossing the question over his shoulder with a familiar tone it took me a moment to place; overt flirtatiousness. The Pharaoh by no means inferred it as shamelessly as Teleia, but the suggestive undercurrent was the same in essence.

"No, but your fun little magic show is wasting our cards." Whether Seto Kaiba was immune or oblivious to the coy taunt was unknown to me, but his answer was guileless and blunt.

"Ha." The Pharaoh laughed at the tart reply and I sought to use his momentary distraction to my advantage.

I raised my hand into the air and lifted a finger, channeling my host's magic into the point. Though I was unprepared to face them both at once perhaps one of my host's more complex spells could even the odds. It would require the bulk of my remaining energy, but I could not allow myself to be caught.

I cast Illusion Magic.

From the point of my finger two illusions split from my body, ethereal and transparent for just a moment before their forms solidified to resemble my perfect duplicates. Wasting no time my Illusions took point at my side, the three of us moving in perfect synchronization.

"Dark Magic Attack" we announced in concert, an orb of thunderous black energy collecting at the end of each of our rods as we leveled all three of them at Seto Kaiba and the Pharaoh both. Formidable foes as they may be, a triple blast from such an attack would not be so easily dismissed.

The Pharaoh's head twisted back around to focus on me and his eyes widened as he beheld the rapidly building charges. I could not say if the desire to do so had been mine, or if the movement had been the manifestation of some small sliver of Mahad's will, but as my Illusions and I held out our fingers and shook them chidingly at the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba the taller boy's feigned indifference was brutally cast aside as his shoulders tensed in anger.

"Step off. This one's mine!" He abruptly demanded, cutting in front of the Pharaoh with a look that wished me a gruesome death. The vehemence of his manner did not bode well but the attacks could not be recalled. With a thrust of our staves the three spheres of crackling magic tore away from us and towards the pair.

There was a rapid movement of his angular elbow and a flash of his pale hand. "Magical Trick Mirror-" Seto Kaiba roared over the sound of the incoming blasts, his voice turning slightly hoarse from the effort.

A bizarre metal creation awash in mirrors and garbed in a dark cloak and pointed hat sprang forth in blue light.

"-Reflect Sphinx Teleia's Mystical Refpanel!" He barked.

The odd golem hastily answered its summoner's call. Within the depths of each mirror's face the reflection of the oasis around us was switched with the image of a child-like figure levitating an orb. A globe of perfect white-blue magic appeared in the mirror monster's non-existent hands. It vacuously devoured all three Dark Magic Attacks, the thundering dark orbs vanishing into the white depths.

"Don't blink; you'll miss the best bit." Seto Kaiba jeered at me and just as surely as the Pharaoh had been performing oddly for his gratification, so did Seto Kaiba pose in a manner far from practical. He took a single step forward, the motion opening up and throwing backwards the fabric of his coat away from his body to extenuate his long limbs and pert abdominal muscles.

The Pharaoh hummed softly, closing his eyes with a countenance of lordly approval as Seto Kaiba turned to him.

"You think you're the only one with tricks up your sleeve?" He remarked, a mild reciprocation of the Pharaoh's playful tone stirring beneath his dry words.

The Pharaoh opened his eyes once more to fix Seto Kaiba with an appreciative look as two shared a foreboding smirk of mutual mirth, the tensed and posed language of their bodies matching each another in both outlandishness and exhilaration.

The Magical Trick Mirror's copy of Mystical Refpanel writhed and churned, struggling to maintain the sphere's shape before finally bursting outwards, returning all three Dark Magic Attacks toward me and my Illusions.

We contorted and thrashed in unison as our attacks were returned to us, striking us squarely in each of our chests and burning us with shocking whips of dark energy that left my limbs heavy and weak. By the nature of my spell the pain of my Illusions was mine to share in as well and my agony was threefold. I sealed my teeth, refusing to voice my pain, yet instead smelt the odor of old iron and tasted rancid meat upon my host's tongue as the necrotic magic that made up my true body oozed free from Mahad's nose and lips. I coughed, clearing his throat so the magician may breathe without impediment and spat out a mouthful of my own carcass.

A pair of blood colored eyes beheld the grim vomit that now stained the earth of his family's most sacred of places and slowly his countenance dropped to something stern and unflinching. "That's enough now." He told the paler boy. "We need to seize his true body and ignore the false ones."

Seto Kaiba scowled at me, his eyes flashing between me and my Illusions with studious intensity. "And which one is that?"

The Pharaoh simply shook his head in reply, the confidence in his voice never waning as he admitted "I don't know. Mahad's illusions are perfect."

"The one on the left is the true Mahad." The priestess announced from the sidelines as she raised up her arm, her finger pointing at me evenly. That was impossible. My host's mastery of this technique was flawless – unparalleled. There was no known method for distinguishing the true caster from his twins and yet the priestess had identified me among my Illusions so easily.

"You can tell?" The Pharaoh questioned curiously, his eyes fixating on the true me as I stood in line with my duplicates.

The priestess stared into my face. No. She stared into my host's face, seeing Mahad in a way that even the magician's broad understanding of the magical arts could not explain. The priestess's hand slid to cover her heart as she inhaled deeply.

"I feel it." Was the only answer she gave.

Seto Kaiba surprised me and my host both as he quickly took her words to be true and acted on them without hesitation.

"You better be right." He sneered as he drew a new card, the sliver of strange light that made up his artificial magic gleaming in his hand. "Because I play Attack Guidance Armor!"

A breastplate of silver steal launched itself toward me from its foreign summoning stone, steadfastly ignoring the Illusions at my side to grapple its cumbersome bulk around my body. It near knocked me over as it bound itself to my host without mercy to weigh down our bones, yet struggling to stand with it was the least of my concerns. I recovered my footing and straightened my spine once more only to find my Illusions now impassively stared not at my foes, but at me.

Mahad's reactions were slowing but still proved fast enough to conjure a Dark Magical Circle to banish the closest of my Illusions. The rune-covered spellcraft encircled its feet to freeze it in place as the second turned on me with reckless abandon.

I dodged and parried five of its magically empowered strikes but the Illusion's blows were relentless - the magical duplicate feeling none of my fatigue as each attack I repelled drained away a little more of Mahad's magical reservoir. Without needing any instruction from its Master Seto Kaiba's Kaiser Sea Horse joined the assault to divide my attention - its spear and the staff of my rebel Illusion landing strong hits to my host's body and dropping me to kneel on one knee.

The Pharaoh, Seto Kaiba, Isis, the Celtic Guardian and Kaiser Seahorse began to converge on where I had been felled, nearing to stand over me like wounded prey as I coughed up yet more necrotic slurry.

The priestess's gaze held my own as once more Seto Kaiba threw back his head like a rearing horse and roared with a second round of blusterous laughter.

"Mhaha! I hope you're taking notes, Pharaoh." His eyes cut away from me to behold the Pharaoh as his mouth coiled into a shape both gloating and exhilarated. "Because this is what taking out a Dark Magician looks like." His expression was one I recognized. It was the flaming elation of a warrior's high - stoked by a passion for victory.

Despite the remark the Pharaoh's features moved to mirror Seto Kaiba's as the paler boy's excitement seemed to feed his own.

"So I see." He wryly countered, the calmness of his face at war with the thrill in his voice.

Quicker than a snake bite the two lunged for each other's lips as though intending to devour each other. The ferocious display both began and ended in a single heart beat and with matching smirks the pressure of their focus returned to me as though their attention had never shifted. It seemed through battle their relations were destined to mature quickly.

"Andro Sphinx, I assume." With the march of a conqueror the Pharaoh strode passed the Illusion I had banished, pulling the Magician's Rod free of its paralyzed grip as he did so to hold threateningly over my head. "You're outmatched."

Seto Kaiba stood attentively at his back, now leering at me as though he were the Pharaoh's enforcer as he flashed a view of the card Soul Demolition in front of my eyes. Mahad knew it, and so too did I. That would indeed eradicate me from this merciless existence, but my duty to the Master was not done yet.

"Submit to us willingly, or be destroyed." The Pharaoh decreed, his eyes searing me with the promise of his words.

Against my better judgment I closed my eyes to the imposing sight of my would be captors and smirked at them, the expression hollow of feeling.

In my stolen voice I announced the spell that would herald my escape.

**Atem**

"Necromancy." The imposter within Mahad's body announced.

I'd dueled the most maniacal of opponents at the very height of their madness, but such malevolence was absent from Andro Sphinx's borrowed voice. He called forth his spell without emotion and calmly allowed it to envelop him.

A thick purple mist spilled from his card to fill my Mother's oasis with a blanket of heavy fog. This technique didn't belong to Mahad, but was a creation of the sem priest who had come to call himself Anubis. The necrotic purple aura was a testament to its creator's perverse magical experiments. It lingered as an unnatural chill in the air of my afterlife, the sudden drop in temperature peppering the skin on my arms with goose flesh and drawing strangled coughs from Kaiba and myself as the cold penetrated our lungs. The lips that our adrenaline-fueled kiss had set alight in a flush of passion quickly lost all memory of that warmth as I gritted my teeth against the spell's icy embrace.

Out of the depths of the haze rose up the decaying husks of men and women, the earth at our feet splitting open as dark limbs breached upwards into air and pulled free the rest of their gaunt and gnarled bodies. The ghouls surrounded us on every side, each lumbering with the steady gait of the risen dead. These were not the immaculately prepared dead of my people's funerary customs. Instead they wore dented armor, blunted weapons and frayed bandages. They moaned and stank of soil and rot but were hardly much of a threat. Each had difficulty seeing us through hollow eye sockets and struggled to move with their taut, dry skin working against them.

I backed away and beside me Kaiba followed as the mass of undead slowly swarmed around us, blocking the sight of Mahad's kneeling body from our eyes.

"Now what?" Kaiba leapt back from one, his long legs propelling him away easily the blackened zombie of a man wearing rough linen scraps lazily swung a clawed hand toward him.

"Keep your distance. They can perceive very little." I observed.

Despite his propensity for having his soul stolen I had confidence in Kaiba's ability to defend himself from physical aggressors. I glanced passed him to Isis. With her arms tightly wrapped around her body for warmth my priestess merely watched the dead figures shamble and groan from beside my Celtic Guardian with her paling lips pressed tightly shut.

"These are the remains of the dead." She noted aloud as Kaiba directed his Kaiser Sea Horse to cut down a ghoul, only to watch through narrowed eyes as the disembodied black limbs knitted themselves back together in the aftermath. "But what are they doing here, in this sacred place?"

"Who cares." Kaiba deadpanned.

With a flick of his wrist he set a card down, bending his knees, leaning forward slightly and exhaling sharply as Burst Breath produced a torrent of orange flame from the depths of his throat. His coat tails thrashed behind him as the blaze incinerated the ghouls that crowded our view of Mahad's body, blowing them away from the site of our downed opponent in a long blast of fire and heat befitting a master of dragons. I leaned into it as I pulled what remained of my cape over my quickly cooling skin.

The charred earth smouldered as Kaiba's Breath ended, leaving behind only scorched earth and the half-melted empty shell of his Attack Guidance Armour to lie broken in the sand. Any embers or ashes that remained were quickly smothered by the mist's oppressive cold.

"He's escaped." I observed.

"Tch!" Kaiba, his Kaiser Sea Horse and I backed away in unison to regroup with Isis and the Celtic Guardian as the corpses vaporized by the inferno began to reform in front of us, their bodies weaving back together once more in thin shreds of dead flesh.

We stepped away from the tide of undead, leaving the range of their senses.

"They are tomb robbers." Isis noted, covering her nose against the stench of the now burnt cadavers as she peered closely at the reanimated remains of barefooted men and women in simple clothes and worn robes bearing the sigil of my kingdom's many bandit tribes. "But...there are... so many of them" her voice was concerned and mournful as she stared out across the mass of undead, the corpse army filling the canyon and oasis. The rotting remains of a once fit bandit man from one clan with a golden torc seared into his rotten flesh lumbered beside the cadaver of a heavily tattooed woman from another, and beside her the toothless zombie of a young pickpocket with a face scarred from a short life of roguery who could be no older than Mokuba Kaiba groaned and twitched among a sea of his peers in a roiling ocean of death and decay. "So many clans...And these wounds..." My priestess hesitantly added before letting her sentence die on the wind, no doubt she had just realized the exact nature of their deaths.

Deep magical wounds and scorch marks not caused by Kaiba's Burst Breath climbed across their bodies and faces, having melted away the features of some and blasted off the limbs of others. Isis's eyes lingered on a corpse who's bottom half was entirely absent as it pulled itself along the ground with spindly arms and split fingernails, a gleaming golden diadem featuring the seal of the royal family shining from between the scraps of what was left of its hair.

Slowly she turned to me, deeply concerned in a way that the priestess often chose to hide rather than show. Such was the magnitude of her upset. "My Pharaoh?" She questioned, watching me with a heavy expression.

Kaiba was stone faced by my side but his expression became curious as his sharp blue eyes cut between Isis and I. "What?" He demanded, able to sense something was amiss, though the only indication of it he gave was the vice like pressure of his jaw. "What is all this?"

"An error of judgment." Was the only answer I could give, but Kaiba's sharp look told me that it wasn't enough. I could understand his silent demand for a better explanation as the zombie tide roamed around us, muffled cries whistling from between gaps in their teeth and skulls. I contemplated how to admit to my failing of character to them both. Kaiba was hardly immune to them himself, but after what we'd begun to share I wanted him to see me at my best. This was far from it.

I carefully chose my next words. "I told you that this oasis was named for my Mother?" Kaiba grunted in acknowledgement so I continued. "That was not the extent of her involvement with this place." I paused as the words became elusive and began to sound like excuses even before I'd had a chance to speak them out loud. "In her great affection for this place, it was her wish that upon her death this would be where she was laid to rest."

Her royal tomb had taken years to carve into the canyon caves. The sem priests and tomb builders had balked at the unorthodox location but my Father had insisted and the Pharaoh was never denied. The oasis was untouched, beautiful, and the secrecy surrounding its location would keep out tomb robbers and thieves. It'd been a perfect choice for her royal tomb. It honored her and everything she'd loved and had been a great comfort to me when I was a child. At that age it'd been sometimes difficult for me to remember that she was safe and untroubled in the afterlife. Even knowing that was little comfort on stormy nights when lightning or sandstorms kept me awake and I couldn't crawl into her bed for comfort. I'd missed her desperately, yet each time Father and I visited the oasis it had felt as though our three souls had been temporarily reunited, if only for the day.

"However, the oasis's location didn't remain a secret forever." I added, frowning as I did so at the distant memory. "Father had been too ill to wake with the sickness that eventually claimed his life, so Aknadin came to me instead." Kaiba scowled at the unfamiliar name but there was no recognition in his face, despite being the reincarnation of Aknadin's heir. "He roused me from my sleep with the news that my Mother's eternal resting place had been found, and was being plundered." I recalled Aknadin to have been strict, indifferent, kindly at times and stalwartly aloof at others, but despite his many flaws he had been both a firm and fair mentor to my High Priest and had cared greatly for Father and Mother. "I trusted his word without doubt and saddled the palace's fastest horse to rush to Mother's tomb." My brow twisted downward. How they'd found it I still didn't know, but the rumour of a royal hoard sealed away in a secret oasis had attracted the attention of many bandit clans as it spread to the outer villages in my kingdom. "I feared they would desecrate my Mother's resting place, so I took action." I grimaced at my own actions as the cold urged my limbs to start to shiver and shake against my wishes.

As a prince I'd known kindness was important and I had practised it. Humility, temperance, these were noble ideals for a future Pharaoh to aspire to and taught to me by my father. I had embraced them to make him proud but in that moment, when I had seen the bandits laughing and jesting over a fire built from the scrolls and furnishings that had once lined her tomb while Mother's stolen jewelry swung from their necks and her rings cluttered their fingers. "A terrible wrath overtook me." I reflected.

Though it was never intended to be mine until my coronation Father had entrusted the Millennium Puzzle to me as he became too weak to rise from his bed. It was the first time I had plumbed the Item's depths for it's power, the crushing need to visit justice on those who dared to defile my Mother's tomb gripping my heart like a cold hand and squeezing it until every ounce of my rage was visited on the perpetrators. The Puzzle had complied, eagerly, and fed my body a dark magic so potent I'd been both unable and unwilling to temper it.

"I ended their lives." Isis bowed her head slightly at the confession, clasping her hands in front of her sorrowfully at my confession as I looked across the horde of decayed faces, risen with expressions of pure agony still in place on their rotten features. "Every last one."

"I knew nothing of this." Isis murmured as she thoughtlessly rubbed her hands together for warmth. It could easily have been an accusation, but it wasn't. My priestesses words were mournful and consoling in understanding.

Few did. It wasn't a story I'd wanted to retell. My unbridled magic had been more devastating than any bandit clan and the blood I'd inadvertently spilled had poisoned the oasis more effectively than the tomb robbers or thieves who'd sought their fortunes there.

"Tch. That sounds needlessly dramatic." Kaiba grunted nonchalantly. "Why bother?"

Kaiba's semi-sarcastic question from my side caught me off guard. "What?" I demanded, unable to believe him. He stared at me stoically as though his face had turned to stone.

"Just why does it matter that they took her stuff?" Kaiba questioned, a sharp edge to his tone making the question pointed before he smirked nastily and added, "It's not like she was gonna to use it."

"There is no place more sacred to the Pharaoh than their tomb." Isis swiftly interjected, her interception very welcome as my mind and emotions churned in the face of Kaiba's undoubtedly wilful ignorance. "It's integrity is paramount to their standing in the afterlife. Desecrating their sanctity risks the Gods may become dissatisfied with the interred in the world beyond." She insisted calmly, side-eyeing Kaiba with mild reproach. "Never should one be breached."

"Tell that to the Egyptologists." Kaiba deadpanned, crossing his arms tightly over his chest as he did so.

Isis frowned at his remark, her statement of "I do not understand." causing Kaiba to roll his eyes.

"You idiots really think the living are worth less than the dead?" He pressed, his voice turning cold and slightly hostile as he narrowed his eyes and skipped over Isis to stare at me.

"It's not that simple, Kaiba." I replied as evenly as I could, trying to stop my teeth from chattering as the frigid haze seemed to will itself through my clothing. I noted with a glance to his face that though Kaiba was a shade paler than usual and had his arms tightly held to his body he seemed largely unaffected by the cold and the cadavers. Instead his piercing blue eyes watched me carefully, intensely, like he was trying to see something inside the very depths of my soul.

From my side Isis inclined her head and began again with renewed conviction.

"Entry into the afterlife is not given freely, nor guaranteed." Her voice was wet pressed silk over a sunburn, giving me the time I needed to recompose my thoughts as she spoke softly but at length. "Many devote their entire lives to pleasing the Gods so as to secure their place in the next life." My priestess glanced to me sympathetically, knowing better than Kaiba the intricacies of our Gods." It is a place of never ending youth, health and happiness, yet even once earned it is a placement that the Gods may rescind at any time, as they see fit, should the deceased grow to displease them." Isis's deep eyes swept over the vast numbers of risen dead slowly, carefully challenging Kaiba's growing scowl with a question I hoped he understood was hypothetical. "What value have the wills and pleasures of those who's lives are but the fast-burning wicks of short candles, compared to the eternal flame of one who has already earned their place in the afterlife? Very little, to most." She concluded.

"You're not subtle." Kaiba countered, aiming all of his ire at Isis.

She replied serenely, "Subtly was never my intention."

"Yeah, well do me a favor-"

"I am already trying to."

"-Next time you feel like throwing some long-winded metaphor at me as a cautionary tale, keep it to yourself. I'm not interested in anything you have to say." Kaiba sneered over her, leering at my priestess as if she'd offended him.

"Very well." Isis agreed neutrally. She endured Kaiba's rage better than I would of in this moment and I nodded to her in thanks for her service. Briefly I thought I'd been spared dealing with his quick temper, but just as I got comfortable with that idea Kaiba rounded on me.

"Do you believe that bull as well?" His tone was sharp and there was a note in it of something I didn't recognize. I kept his gaze for a long moment, trying to gauge his mood before answering as truthfully as I could.

"I do." I confirmed.

Or I did. While I was alive I most certainly had and now I was myself again - by that merit I should do so once more, but that would ignore everything that I'd learned from my time as Yugi's partner and the rest of our friends. If I had to weigh my afterlife against saving their lives I'd make that sacrifice for them, exactly as I'd done when I risked appearing to them in the living world to thwart Diva. I'd had no guarantee that the Gods would smile on my choice to help as I intervened to save them, but the lives of Joey and Yugi had been worth that gamble. I caught that thought and turned it over to examine it. It was by omission an acknowledgement that I valued their lives over the God's themselves. That realization was uncomfortable.

"Life's the middle of a duel - anything can happen" Kaiba glared at me pointedly. "Death's the end. It doesn't matter if you won or lost because you don't get to play again."

"An interesting notion from the reincarnation of a High Priest." Isis calmly defended.

She was right but I could scarcely imagine a statement more perfectly formed or timed to push Kaiba's anger to what I suspected was near its breaking point.

"Tch!"

He turned on his heel to show me his back and I could see from the shadows of his shoulder blades that his shoulders were tensed. As heavily clothed as he was I doubted it was because of the freezing fog. "Don't ever tell me this clown kingdom is better than the real deal." He threatened over his shoulder. Isis and I watched as his Kaiser Sea Horse quickly leapt to Kaiba's side and he stormed away from us with an irritated flick of his coat.

"Where are you going?" I called out. His long legs covered ground quickly when motivated and he put distance between us at the speed that meant he was currently very motivated.

"To play the damn game." He hissed back over his shoulder without stopping or turning back.


	26. Chapter 26

**Isis**

I had been cautious of the Other Seto and my instincts knew his presence here to hold the potential to yet make a powerful upset in the Pharaoh's afterlife, but despite his coarse personality he was not the threat I had first thought him to be. He was arrogant, thankless and disrespectful of both the Pharaoh and our culture but even so causing him to depart in a brooding sulk was not what I had intended.

The Pharaoh exhaled sharply in obvious irritation, his breath expelling as a curious puff of mist in the unnaturally chilled air, yet his face reflected my reluctance to see the Other Seto strike out on his own as we watched him grow more distant with every step.

Despite the pressing cold I warmed as I beheld his distracted expression. Our young king was rarely anything but confident and regal, yet in this moment his focus was torn like that of any other of his age. He scowled, looking much like Seto Kaiba, as if the Other Seto's manner was in some way contagious. His eyes darted from Seto Kaiba's back to my own face as he swayed between two conflicting desires as surely as the Puzzle swung pendulously around his neck. This I understood to be a result of his budding relationship with Seto Kaiba. I had come to learn full well that being pulled between such compelling extremes was a challenge of early affections that seemed able to catch even the grandest of us like a sparrow in a sandstorm. I could imagine what he debated, for given their new closeness there were only two sensible options. On the one one hand I believed he wanted to follow Seto Kaiba, but on the other knew it was a better idea to give him space. Our ways were not his ways and any friction would only become worse if the Pharaoh pressed him now.

The Kaiser Sea Horse sliced in two any of the lingering undead that came too close to Other Seto as he marched through them with determination, but with a toss of the wind his white garb vanished from our view behind a blanket of frigid haze.

The Pharaoh opened his mouth, perhaps to call out to him, just as I inadvertently cut the thread of his thoughts with a gentle utterance of "I am sorry, my Pharaoh. This was not my intention."

I had over stepped my bounds.

The Pharaoh's attention abruptly turned to me and he returned my apologetic smile with one of his own, though it was fleeting and forced. His earnings buffeted against the young Pharaoh's jaw as he shook his elegant head to dismiss my apology.

"You're not to blame, Isis." The Pharaoh reassured me, using a softer tone that he often took with Mana. "Kaiba is not predisposed to being outdone, even in trading witticisms." The statement was an irritated one, yet somehow also brimmed with veiled respect.

"He resembles the High Priest so keenly." I noted. Keenly enough that I forgotten to temper my words. "I should have known better than to press him as Mahad and I would have done with Seto."

"It's alright." The Pharaoh replied, the formality of his words laxer than it would normally have been, yet greater than when he spoke to Seto Kaiba from what I had observed. "In form and basic nature the two are very similar." My Pharaoh frowned softly "Much more so than Yugi and I."

I had heard the Pharaoh's tales of this Yugi. He sounded like a kind-hearted and enlightened boy by the Pharaoh's account. A truly pure soul. That was a heavy weight to be measured against. Indeed, life was a much more difficult prospect when one's total worth was evaluated in comparison to others. It was a thought Mahad would have known how to shape and present to the Pharaoh, but I lacked his way with such words. I missed his insight into such things, along with everything else about the priest.

Despite the Pharaoh's acceptance of my apology I still regretted it nevertheless, particularly as I had managed to offend someone the Pharaoh was coming to develop affections for.

"I shall be more mindful in future." I assured my king.

I only prayed Seto Kaiba did not come to harm while now alone. If he did my words would become a most costly mistake...

Upon awakening in the Pharaoh's afterlife the Pharaoh had soon realized that none of us recalled the events that came after his sealing within the Millennium Puzzle. Only Mahad had dreams and glimpses of foreign battlefields in other, much stranger times and places, but they were fleeting and disjointed. I believed them to be merely echoing visions from the part of him that remained bound with the tablet of the Dark Magician.

The Pharaoh had thought the missing memories of our futures to be a sign to continue our lives where we had left them during his reign, unburdened and without the weight of knowing our fates, yet it was the recollection of what had happened immediately before the Pharaoh's sacrifice that haunted me. Even though in this place we were finally reunited once more, knowing that Mahad had been slain and his Ka sealed, and that after the Pharaoh's passing I had continued to live a life absent of him, was a difficult charge to accept. Our courtship had been so tentative and new back then. To think of it being stuck down just as it had begun to grow was grievous.

I did not wish that fate upon the Pharaoh and Seto Kaiba, no matter how inappropriate of a match the Other Seto appeared to be.

"Think nothing of it." The Pharaoh commanded. He did not seem surprised that I had run aground on Seto Kaiba's rocky temper by treating him as I did the High Priest. "Their zeal and casual ruthlessness are the same but oddly it is Seto who is the more level-headed of the two." A slight smirk crossed the Pharaoh's face. His lips were beginning to take on a slightly blueish tint. I could not imagine being subjected to such cold while still convalescing would do him good, but for the moment he remained animated, if only by the pleasure he seemed to garner from speaking about the other boy. "Kaiba's modern education has made him more brilliant, but he's more temperamental because of it." The Pharaoh summarized for me.

'Temperamental' indeed.

I inclined my head in understanding. My fingers felt numb and unresponsive as I pulled my garb to cover the large area of my neck and shoulders exposed by the damage done to my robe. I hoped to repel the chill of Necromancy, but it felt as if it had settled straight into my bones. I feared the Pharaoh fared little better as he shifted what remained of his cloak to better cover his exposed skin.

"What of the Other Seto. Shall we follow him?" I questioned, gently.

The Pharaoh's eyebrows rose a fraction at the name, the corner of his mouth turning upwards slightly in a half-conscious smirk before returning to the frustrated expression he had worn as his companion stalked off. "I won't humor Kaiba by rushing to his side." His expression became stern and stalwart. "But, he's right." The Pharaoh added belatedly, "We must find a way to end the effects of this spell."

I inclined my head in agreement as he set off in the direction Seto Kaiba had departed. The phantasmal fog coating the ground chilled my heels and ankles as we moved through it, bringing a frigid rush of cold sensation as the Pharaoh, his Celtic Guardian and I began to weave around the remaining living dead. I side-stepped the senses of one of the rotting men as they staggered around us and a blast of freezing wind settled between our bodies like an ambient aura, causing the Pharaoh to shiver violently at my side. I did not wish to but the smell of decay riding the wind caught at the back of my nose and I could no longer repress the urge to wretch that had dogged me since Necromancy's activation no longer.

"Isis?" The Pharaoh called, at my side in an instant as I lost whatever remained in my stomach to the heinous stench. I was not usually so tender-stomached as this, but the sights, the smells and the life within me worked in union to disrupt my constitution. The Pharaoh placed his hand upon my arm, and I covered it with my other hand gently as I silently reassured him.

The Pharaoh gazed at me speculatively, and then squeezed my hand before letting me be with a nod of acceptance. The gesture was without doubt one he had learned from Mahad. It was a soft and subtle clasping of hands that Mahad and I had come to share many times under the veil of cloaks or tables. Though I was grateful to have known the reign of not one but two Pharaoh's kind enough of spirit to respect and worry for his priests my heart ached mildly at the reminder of the magician's inadvertently appropriated habit.

"KAAAAA-bummmmmmghfffff!"

A short way ahead of us an outward explosion of bright, tumultuous light that burned and raged like the sun itself reverberated through the pass, jostling loose stones and rocks from the canyon walls that surrounded us.

The Pharaoh reacted to without sparing a moment.

With a firm but gentle grip he pulled me to one side as a boulder that was shaken free by a deafening feat of spellcraft that shook the canyon. Pebbles showered down and the Pharaoh's Celtic Guardian deftly stepped up to slice through another large chunk of stone as it fell toward us - carving it down the middle. The rock fell away at either side of our bodies like the two halves of a neatly severed egg as the Pharaoh raised the peculiar armor he wore on his arm that matched that of Seto Kaiba's own.

In a flash of light magic the Pharaoh called up small golden scripture, written in what I assumed to be the language that our king and Seto Kaiba seemed to share on odd occasions. The foreign tongue was a lingering memento and poignant reminder of our Pharaoh's experiences in another time and place.

"Induced Explosion?" The Pharaoh questioned aloud, his eyebrows knitting together with the beginings of irritation as he beheld the writings. "And Kaiser Sea Horse has been destroyed!" He noted with an undertow of concern before defying all sense by started to sprint head-long towards the source of the miniature sun's discharge. "Kaiba!" The Pharaoh shouted furiously into the distance as his raw speed made my much slower jog appear lethargic in comparison.

A nearby cave collapsed from the quakes that still pounded the ground beneath my feet and the freezing air stabbed at my lungs as I ran toward the Pharaoh's back. My eyes caught a fleeting look of raw fury that crossed the Pharaoh's face as he passed the crumbling cavern and his features promised a kingly reckoning was soon to come.

As I rounded a final rock to catch up to him our quarry was revealed. The Pharaoh scowled and scattered the sand around his feet as he came to a halt.

With the swirling and quite recognizable magic of our High Priest's Negate Attack, Seto Kaiba blocked a burst of magic from the stave of one Mahad while a second watched the fight impassively from across the new battlefield.

"Celtic Guardian, help Kaiba!" The Pharaoh commanded with haste, pointing the Ka into battle. The green-garbed warrior's cloak swished like a horse's tail as he intercepted the next blow of Seto Kaiba's attacker. The silver blade and Mahad's staff locked against each other with the sound of clattering and grinding steel as the Celtic Guardian and Illusion of Mahad struggled to overpower one another.

Freed from having to deal with his attacker any longer Seto Kaiba turned on the other Mahad that watched from the sides of the canyon.

"That's the real one." He growled with a piercing look towards the true Mahad. His words still produced billows of haze as he spoke them but his body was not shivering or blue and red tipped in it's extremities as the Pharaoh's and my own had become. I had thought his lengthy garb foolish in the Egyptian sun when I had first laid eyes upon it but here, awash in the deathly chill of Necromancy, the vestments had merit. Perhaps the place he came from was a cold one. Such an environment would stand to suit the Other Seto, from what I had observed of him.

The foe the Pharaoh named 'Andro Sphinx' watched us from behind Mahad's face with unreadable eyes, seeming none the more perturbed for being quickly ousted, nor the arrival of Seto Kaiba's reinforcements. Despite being largely unaffected by our appearance he coiled his muscles as though about to attack.

"Move!" Our High Priest's reincarnation bellowed back at us next.

Mahad's true body charged at us, darting straight through the remains of several phantasmal ghosts and doggedly followed by the Other Seto, his white coat flying behind him as he gave chase to the Magician. His boots skidded to a stop in the sand, disrupting the fog spirits all around us as his arm sliced through the haze to place a card on his strange and ethereal DiaDhank.

"Shadow Spell!" He beckoned, a void of purple so dark and deep it appeared purest black at a first glance ripping open in the air above him and cutting through the sky above our heads towards Mahad. From its depths hundreds of magical chains swiftly struck downward at the earth like bolts of lightening. Mahad's headdress was knocked from his crown as he ducked under one chain, only to be ensnared by another.

The Pharaoh readied his own armament to join his companion's, taking a place at Seto Kaiba's side as though he had done so many times before.

"How did you find him so quickly?" He asked, his pointed gaze not leaving Mahad's body now that he was in our midst once more. I appreciated the Pharaoh's diligence. With an impressive number of spells at Mahad's disposal he would be difficult to locate if he attempted to flee once again. Until Mahad was himself once more that risk was ever-present.

"I activated Induced Explosion and let the detonation find him for me." Seto Kaiba grunted back.

The Pharaoh's expression pinched in irritation at that.

The taller of the pair squared his shoulders and watched through narrow eyes as more and more of his chains successfully coiled around Mahad's body. "Try running away again now." He sneered at the captured Magician.

Mahad's body pulled tight against the chains with finality before stilling and relaxing into their hold.

"Mhaha. That's it, submit like a beaten dog." The Other Seto goaded, his boisterous laugh drawing the Pharaoh's eyes in a silent reprimand.

The High Priest and he truly were alike. That thought was inescapable as I watched a young man who was not our Seto heckle the Magician as if he was my arrogant young friend's magical duplicate. Much like our High Priest I suspected Seto Kaiba was about to be faced with the humbling realization that even weakened, damaged and drained as he was, Mahad was no novice sorcerer, nor so easily bested.

"Another time." Far from delighting in long speeches as his master seemed to, the creature that subdued Mahad's virtuous spirit was one of few words. Two alone was all he offered before closing his eyes. I sensed it as the rapidly exhausting remains of Mahad's magic gathered in great concentration at the center of his being, before lancing outwards in every direction and burning away the chains that bound his limbs as if the metal was but simple papyrus.

With a final backwards bound to free himself he conjured a new spell.

**Atem**

With one fluid motion Illusion Magic was discarded from the field as Andro Sphinx beckoned the magic of Double Spell to his aid. In a burst of dark light the remaining Illusion still locked in battle with my Celtic Guardian blew apart. My Guardian's blade sailed through now empty air as his opponent vanished mid-swing before the loyal warrior turned and sprinted to return to my side.

A richly colored iridescent pool of pure arcana welled up in the ground beneath our feet, casting tiny spheres of glowing light around us as Double Spell swelled in anticipation of its caster's declaration.

"Swords of Revealing Light." Our foe called out, beckoning forth the protective swords that I had used to temporarily seal Anubis in the throne room from my graveyard. Each of the gleaming ethereal blades flew upward from Double Spell's incandescent depths to hover above over our heads. He was intending to pen us within my own field of mystical imprisonment!

I glanced briefly to Kaiba, suspecting he had something better suited for repelling one of my own spell cards but to my surprise he merely stood in place, glaring at me. His expression was surly but I didn't have time to negotiate his apparently foul mood. As he made no move to help it was up to me to act.

"I activate Bounce Spell!" I declared in response, the words punctuated by yet another huff of chilled breath. The cold was making my fingers numb and had slightly reddened their tips but that wouldn't prevent me from activating my card.

Rendered quickly by Kaiba's holograms, Bounce Spell's golden surface appeared swiftly at my side, the ebony pupil of the tablet's single eye pointedly focusing the effects of Swords of Revealing Light back on Mahad's body. The blades twirled in the air, reorienting themselves to point instead at Andro Sphinx before swooping down to hover around him, blocking his every side and the open sky above his head. Imprisoned by the magical confines of my Swords Andro Sphinx went still once more, breathing deeply in heavy exhalations of hot breath that turned to vapor as they met the freezing air, much like my own.

Cornered and trapped in a similar situation Sphinx Teleia had turned rabid and feral, thrashing against the boundaries of her prison like a wounded animal. Her reaction was the difference between night and day as Andro Sphinx instead closed his eyes and folded his legs beneath him as he knelt down on the earth, for all purposes appearing to be ignoring everything and everyone around him now that escape was no longer possible.

The cold pressed in as the battle calmed with Andro Sphinx's submission but despite the frost and the chill I felt only a flame of pure ire heat my stomach, and it wasn't aimed at our defeated enemy.

"Induced Explosion?" I questioned through gritted teeth, trying to sheath my anger as I waited for Kaiba to explain himself.

How could he play something so intentionally destructive after learning everything this place meant to me? Knowing that my mother's tomb was here, out of sight? After seeing everything that I'd done to protect it from harm! Was it simply obstinate thoughtlessness or was he trying to punish me for Isis's words? For my beliefs? Kaiba had reacted very poorly to being called 'worthless' once before and was indeed vindictive enough to do so again.

"Why that card of all choices?" I demanded to know, hoping - if foolishly - that his reply wasn't some arbitrary excuse for his vengeful demolition.

"Because I'll do whatever it takes to win." He deadpanned, sauntering passed Isis and our captive and glancing around the scarred canyon walls, dislodged stone and other marks of destruction that he'd wrought. "Even if I have to step over a few corpses."

"Kaiba." I warned, feeling my rage build. His reply was so encumbered by spite that it stirred all of my ire.

Kaiba straightened his back, as he often did when wanting to intimidate others. "If the living are worthless then why bother trying to win this whole duel in the first place, Pharaoh? You could've just let him kill me." He demanded, using the edge of his boot to flick sand at the meditative Andro Sphinx who didn't even flinch as the grit sprayed over him.

"What?!" How could he say something so intentionally obtuse?

"If we lose Anubis goes back to the real world in my place. That gets him out of your afterlife either way." He mocked, with an uncaring shrug and a challenging grimace. "So why bother?"

It seemed that Kaiba liked to choose the most inopportune moments possible to ambush me with the full force of whatever thoughts and grievances his mind collected like rainwater. He was likely trying to catch me off guard and in doing so squeeze out some 'true' answer that worked in his favor, or played to his varying disturbances. It seemed to be working. Kaiba's deliberate goading wore down what remained of my composure.

"Because you'd be trapped here!" I shouted at the damned oaf.

He smirked at the slip I had made by using the word 'trapped', as though he'd scored a point in a contest that only he knew about.

"And?" He sarcastically parried with an obviously willful ignorance.

"And because you don't belong here!" I could scarcely imagine a person less suited to life in ancient Egypt than Seto Kaiba. No matter how far the bounds of my afterlife stretched I doubted the width or breadth of its expanse could either satisfy Kaiba or hold his attention. This place would be only a prison to him. "You'd go mad in this world, in my time, without your technology and without Mokuba." I countered. His teeth gritted at the mention of Mokuba's name, as I'd expected them too. Hammering this through his thick skull was clearly going to be no easy task and if it took a mallet with his brother's name attached to it then so be it! Predictably, evoking his younger brother's name bought me a momentary reprieve from Kaiba's belligerent hissing so I pressed my advantage.

"I respect you too greatly to wish that fate on you." Despite the fact that he had wished exactly the reverse of that fate on me. Had Kaiba's methodology returned me successfully to Puzzle in Yugi's world I doubted he'd care about the scar kidnapping and imprisoning me would have cut into my heart. Suddenly the closeness we'd begun to try to cultivate seemed so fragile given the knowledge that had Kaiba's plan not failed there would be no way I could ever forgive him, nor wish us closer.

"There are people waiting for you to return, Kaiba." I all but yelled at him as I saw steeliness return to his posture.

"For you as well!" The volume of reply matched mine, the two sentences echoing against each other as they bounced around the canyon.

He turned my words on me and momentarily stole the breath from my chest. In that moment I could smell the floral perfume that Téa wore and hear the subtle rubbery squeak of Joey's sneakers as he fidgeted behind my back as if they were here with me. The sensation of them lasted only a second and the grip of the frigid temperature seemed to bite ever more sharply as it passed.

"Actual living people, who are alive." Kaiba barked emphatically. His attention cut across me to Isis with a pointed leer. "She can't even tell me if she and the rest of your toadies are real or fake." With a feckless snatch of his wrist Kaiba gestured between the risen dead lining the landscape and my priestess. Isis wisely remained silent as Kaiba continued. "The only difference between these ghouls and that one is that she has better graphics." He snapped. "Or is it that Yugi and his gang of dolts aren't enough for you anymore?"

His words delivered a heavy blow and I balked at his brazenness. That wasn't the case and he knew it! I began to reprimand his foolish accusation but something in the way he held my gaze made me think twice. I was beginning to understand the non-verbal cues that Kaiba wove into his words as thoughtlessly as his own breath. He was testing me somehow; perhaps this whole argument was part of it. I gritted my teeth as I puzzled out the second question hidden beneath his first one.

"Of course they're enough; and so are you, you damn fool!" I pressed, beyond furious at his insinuation to the contrary. The anticipatory disappointment in his gleaming eyes was eased for a moment before they hardened again as I finished announcing what needed to be said. "But that isn't my destiny! Fate has led me here, Kaiba!"

I was running out of ways to rephrase that for him.

Kaiba jerked a finger at the ghostly bodies lying all around us and sneered, "Just like it did all of them?"

I returned his petty scowl with one of my own.

"Everyone's 'destined' to die, Pharaoh." He spat my title at me as though the word was dirt coating his tongue. "The bit before that's called 'life' and that's what matters." With that conclusion in place Kaiba crossed his arms and leaned back from his hips, the planes of his body echoing the tall and immovable declaration. I felt Kaiba was touching on something beyond merely my nerves - it stung the depths of my mind, the irritating uncomfortable feeling like a stray grain of sand caught in an eye - but couldn't place what and I didn't care to with the shear annoyance he currently represented.

"I've already lived my life, Kaiba!" I contested angrily. Though short it had been important. My reign had been just a fraction of my father's, but in that time I'd defeated many evils and sealed away the dark magics of the Shadow Realm and Zorc the Dark One so that they could never threaten the world again. "A good one. And I've left behind a worthy legacy!" Despite everything around us and all of the corpses Necromancy had willed back to life I didn't doubt that. Kaiba scoffed, attempting to interrupt me with a dismissive jeer of something but I didn't allow his words to impede my own. "The modern world as you know it may not have come to be if it weren't for that!"

"And thanks to me you could cash in all that store credit for a free do-over, but you won't?" Kaiba argued back. "Explain the logic to me!"

Whatever remained of my patience snapped like a dry tree branch under the weight of his petulant heckling.

"I don't owe you an explanation!" I roared, fully losing my temper with him. "This debate is over!" I flashed the open palm of my hand at him and held it in front of his face, demanding his silence. Kaiba had riled me with such precise intent that I was surprised when he snapped his mouth shut and promptly stopped speaking. Besides the rage-filled echo of my own voice around the rocks everything else fell silent, almost as if Kaiba really would leave the topic alone.

"Tch!" A defiant "For now." Was all he had left to throw in my face as we stared each other down like the rivals we truly were. Abruptly Kaiba's expression darkened to become frustrated again. "Screw last night, and this morning! We're too different-'!"

"-Of that I am acutely aware!" I bit back to interrupt him and then regretted as something in his eyes shifted.

"This is why _we'd_ never have worked." He snapped but there was a hint of real and true upset was beneath the sarcastic and vague question.

I trapped my tongue behind my teeth before it could strike out again and silently scowled at Kaiba. I was surprised by how comfortable he was discussing this topic with Isis and one of our enemies as active bystanders. He seemed to ignore them completely, as though both were beyond being acknowledged. Isis's own attention was elsewhere, staring intently at Mahad's body as Kaiba regarded her with only the brief passing glance he gave his own holograms.

"We didn't even manage to put twenty-four hours on the clock." His rueful smirk was so bitter I could almost taste it. Was he proposing an end to whatever this young and terse thing we were nurturing was? Already? I was beyond annoyed with him but that wasn't what I wanted and giving up so easily wasn't in either of our natures.

"Kaiba. You're an ass." I declared, still enraged with him but feeling my hot uncomfortable emotions be dampened by his odd and roundabout way of demanding reassurance. "No new courtship can magically erase that." His eyes narrowed at me like those of an angry cat. "But just because you can't have your way doesn't make everything a loss!" I settled upon, keeping my voice raised if only to drive home my point.

"Hnh." He grunted back, throwing his head to one side so he wouldn't have to look at me.

I was still exasperated by him and fortunately it looked like he could sense that, which was the first display of intelligence I'd seen from the pig-headed cretin since he'd picked this ill-timed fight.

"My Pharaoh."

Isis's calm voice was a soothing breeze compared to Kaiba's unruly tempest, although it carried a hint of urgency and unrest that wasn't normal.

My priestess's eyes drew mine to Mahad's kneeling stolen body. Andro Sphinx was still bound within the limits that Swords of Revealing Light would allow him, but after a second I sensed as she did the thing that had drawn her attention.

Through shear concentration Mahad's body was channeling the last of its energies into something unknown.


	27. Chapter 27

**Kaiba**

That blowhard! He was living in past and I was gonna snap him out of it.

_"I don't owe you an explanation! This debate is over!"_

He wanted to know why I'd played one of my own cards from my own deck and then shouted that nonsense at me? Just who did he think he was talking to!

I hadn't been intending to use Induced Explosion that way, but like hell I was going to tell him that now.

Necromancy was clearly just another distraction so I'd left Atem and Isis to their delusions to get something useful done. The Pharaoh's little vacation spot had only way in and out and it was just narrow enough to make a perfect choke point. My plan had been to use a controlled Explosion to blast free enough rocks to seal the exit into the desert. Their precious Magician wouldn't have been able to escape, or not without using a spell or summoning a new monster. Thanks to my Duel Disks we'd have known the moment he'd tried anything and I'd have been able to take him out. Short of putting up official KaibaCorp demolition signs with that ridiculous picture of a Blue-Eyes in a hard hat that the marketing team were so proud of I'd been ready to follow through, until the Magician had jumped me and I'd had to improvise.

"My Pharaoh."

For once I appreciated Isis's dull Egyptian drawl as she lured away the death glare Atem had been trying to tattoo the side of my face with. His anger made my skin crawl, which was new. Usually I didn't care about redundant things like that but now - knowing how irritated he was after we'd started making googly eyes at each other last night - it felt different. Pathetic. I ignored such pitiful pangs of sentimentality and turned to see what Isis was droning about now.

"I sense something is amiss." She added and both of them turned to stare at 'Mahad', or 'Andro Sphinx', or whoever, like he was a live bomb that had begun to count down to zero. I rolled my eyes at their dramatics. I couldn't 'sense' anything. I kept my sights on the Pharaoh anyway, trying to gauge what it was he thought was about to happen. His eyes abruptly widened, like they did whenever one of his opponents activated a devastating trump card on him.

"He's casting -" Atem shouted, only to be interrupted by Andro Sphinx. Apparently he was done kneeling in the dirt like a pitiful third tier duelist.

"-Magician Navigation."

The ring of glyphs that featured on most of the Dark Magician related cards spun up on the ground in a flash. A pulsating black hole in the floor that looked suspiciously like a singularity spawned under the Magician's feet and with an apathetic stare Andro Sphinx let himself sink into. That figured. Swords of Revealing Light was surrounding him on every side except one so of course that was how he'd try to escape. He disappeared from sight through the void on the ground like he'd melted into it.

"After him!" The Pharaoh commanded, the muscles of his arm straining as he lashed his hand around to discard Swords of Revealing Light and the Celtic Guardian. He thanked his monster as it despawned with a curt dip of his head and ran at the magical rabbit hole. "Quickly! The portal won't stay open for long." He shouted as he jumped into it and vanished down the damn thing.

"Tch!" I sprinted to keep up with him and then slid to a stop as I reached the edge of the portal's edge. He was right, the diameter of it was shrinking, fast.

"Hurry up!" Barking back at Isis didn't get her moving any quicker. It was an annoyance but I waited for her. There wasn't any point in digging myself any deeper into the Pharaoh's bad books by ditching his priestess. She nodded to me as she caught up and I took that as her way of saying 'thank you' before cautiously stepping into the portal one foot at a time. As soon the top of her head disappeared into the magical paddling pool I jumped in after them.

"Ghnnn!" I gritted my teeth and prepared for the worst as I free fell through a dark twisting tunnel. The empty vacuum was disorientating. It didn't feel of anything. It wasn't hot, or cold and there was no sound. Without something to look at the only evidence I hadn't gone blind was that I could still see my hand in front of my face. I clenched my fist in anticipation. Wherever this thing was going to let us out it would be irritating. Our enemy had the advantage and could abuse it however he wanted. Marooning us somewhere in the middle of the desert would be a smart move, or out at sea. Even dropping us off of a cliff would do the job. I kept my Duel Disk close, ready to take on whatever was coming next.

There was a shift in the air as I got to the other side. That was the only way I could tell that I'd landed as I staggered free of the portal's mouth. Wherever I was it was pitch black. There was nothing but trapped heat and darkness along with the subtle shifting sounds of linen to my left and the soft slapping noise that Atem's earrings made against his face whenever he turned his head too quickly. My best guess was we'd come out in another cave, or knowing this place, a tomb.

I didn't like guessing games – duels with the Pharaoh had conditioned me to despise them. I refused to play one a second longer than I had to.

"Zwwwwwp." The area was lit up with a massive bloom of light from my Duel Disk.

Beside me Atem and Isis pulled their arms over their eyes to block out the sudden brightness before slowly lowering them again as the glare passed. Holograms were light so of course the units could be used this way if wearing the worlds least practical flashlight on your wrist was your thing. I held up my arm for Atem to see and silently pointed at the button I'd used to active the Duel Disk's omni-directional projectors. Just as I predicted he copied the gesture to active his own without needing to be told any more than that. He glanced over his unit curiously as the yellow light of his UI fought against the blue of mine. The two battled over the features of our new location.

"Where are we now?" I muttered, casting my arm around to spread out the field of illumination. I was getting tired of asking that question.

Our lights bounced off the sharp corners of a room that was the shape of a truncated square pyramid, with a tall vertical shaft that extended upward like a massive chimney. It looked like a large chamber that fed off into several alcoves that were just out of sight, hidden in darkness.

The layout was familiar, but it shouldn't have been.

It looked almost exactly the same as the vault I'd built under the Kaiba Mansion to store my cards in. The idea of it was idiotic, but the intense feeling of deja vu was difficult to rationalize. I flashed my Duel Disk towards where the elevator back up into the house would be if this really was my card vault. Of course we were thousands of years too early for one to be there, but it aggravated me when a long and steep stone staircase leading down the elevated platform we were on took its place as a parody. Whatever. I turned around to finish completing a three hundred and sixty degree inspection of the place.

"What the-?" As my Duel Disk directly illuminated the walls the sight sent a shock to my system.

Lining the walls from the floor to the ceiling were thousands of stone tablets. The carved images were rough in comparison to the work of Industrial Illusion's illustrators and graphic designers, but the duel monsters were easily recognizable regardless. A lot of them were from the older card packs – monsters from the earlier generation of the game before Pegasus started over exerting his artistic license and making up stupid-looking new cards from nothing. Ironically with Effect Monsters replacing their vanilla counterparts in most duelist's decks these were now some of the least played creatures in all of Duel Monsters.

"It appears we have emerged within the Shrine of Wedju." Isis noted in a hushed voice, like if she spoke too loud she'd wake up the wall decor. I scowled at her in the low light and apparently she took that as an invitation to explain more about this gaudy tourist trap. "It is a holy place." She whispered, "The tablets of the gods rest here, along with the creatures exorcised from the hearts of sinners and sealed into stone."

Atem's sandals slapped against stone floor as he cautiously prowled around the square platform we were standing on, the yellow and blue lines of light from our Duel Disks dividing his face in two and vying for territory across his stiff expression as he pointed his Duel Disk into every shadowy corner. "Where did Andro Sphinx escape to?" The loud-mouthed projection he'd been using to shout at me with was missing so it looked like even he felt the need to treat this place with Isis's typically superstitious reverence.

I joined Atem in doing a final once over of the place, pointing my overblown flashlight down into the depths of the precipitous drop that surrounded our platform on all sides before drawing an inevitable conclusion. "He's not here."

"We're not far from the palace." The Pharaoh added with a pensive frown. I didn't know if he'd said that for my benefit or not but it seemed unlikely while I was out of his good graces. "We must find Andro Sphinx before he's mistaken for Mahad by the palace guard, or escapes into the city to threaten my people."

I didn't care about any potential 'threats' to this world's NPCs. All I wanted to know was why this place looked so much like my damn vault. The stone tablets lined the walls exactly where my card trays should be – the only detail missing was my custom Blue-Eyes statue. I turned to double check, just to make sure.

"What!?" I snapped as my holographic projectors roved over something impossible. This place was mocking me with its likeness.

It was a crude picture and the pose was stiff but the stone tablet was definitely of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. The Pharaoh and Isis turned to me wearing matching expressions as they got a look at what I was scanning my unit's light over but I ignored them. Blue-Eyes didn't get to be here! I wouldn't allow it. There were other monsters from my earlier decks surrounding it too, Battle Ox and La Jinn.

"These are my cards!" I'd chosen them myself, I even remembered the booster pack La Jinn had come out of. They were from my deck; one I'd made independent of anyone or anything else. Why were they here, grouped together like an old deck list from Duelist Kingdom?

The Pharaoh frowned at the carvings. "Many of the monsters from both of our decks are sealed here." He noted.

He couldn't cross the void between the platform and the chamber walls put still reached out a hand and as if he wanted to touch the nearby tablet depicting his Dark Magician to brush away some dust. His look becoming a lot darker as Isis's softened up to look hollow and haunted instead. "Though Mahad is here in my afterlife an irretrievable part of him will always be locked in the Dark Magician's stone." He inclined his head to the tablet like it could see him before sharply turning toward the narrow stairs that would take us down to the exit of this so called 'shrine'. "I won't allow him to be bound again, especially within his own body!" He declared, his eyes burned as he got fired up, all five foot nothing of him seeming to ripple and radiate with energy. Words weren't needed, just a meaningful glance over his shoulder at me as he made for the first step with his ruined cape billowing behind him like it had caught the wind even in this airless place. I followed – not because of his look - because I want to.

Isis didn't move for a second. She stood in front of the tablet like it had petrified her before snapping out of it and touching her hand to her heart. She gave the tablet a despairing backwards glance, the sort of one Mokuba had given me whenever one of my private tutors showed up to escort me away from him and back into another one of Gozaburo's mandated lessons, then trailed after us. Real people having Duel Monsters pulled out of them or being magically sealed into rocks was just more nonsense, but despite how implausible it was there was no arguing with the sad puppy dog eyes Isis had thrown at that slab of stone.

Trying to consolidate my observations of the magical bull in this world with the scientific certainties of the real one gave me a headache. The Pharaoh and I really were to different for 'this'. Innately incompatible, like science and magic. It hadn't even been a day. It wasn't too late to back out. Ending whatever it was we'd started was sensible and practical, especially while he was so pissed with me.

It also wasn't something I wanted to do.

Stupid as felt to admit, I wanted those weird-feeling touches and unlikely lip locks to continue. Every time they happened I felt excited – the first time I had in years outside of a duel or the cockpit of my jet. It was the same heady anticipation I barely remembered feeling a long time ago as I carefully teased open the foil packaging of a new Duel Monsters booster pack. I hadn't felt that way about anything in years, not since I was that kid scrounging up cards for my first deck.

It made him being angry at me only more aggravating. My boot loudly scuffed against one of the steps as I stamped down on it with irritation.

I was used to keeping my cards close to my chest – that was the best way to crush an opponent, but Atem wasn't an enemy this time. I needed to adapt my strategy. The first step in doing that was knowing what the purpose of the adaption was and I'd just figured that out. I wanted another shot at the touchy feely hand holding nonsense. That wasn't going to happen if I kept playing by our old rule set. In every product's life time there was a choice to either double down on what you knew or innovate. Shouting matches with Atem had never been a problem before, but things weren't like before. 'Before' was in the past. That took doubling down off the table which suited me fine. Innovation played to my strengths. Besides, I liked a challenge.

Tempting as it was to leave the Pharaoh to stew on things for a while before setting him straight, negativity had a way of sticking around and soaking into everything like a bad smell. I knew that well enough. It was time to deal with this.

"Hey. Wait." I caught his wrist as he cleared the final step.

Pillars lining the exit to the outside world framed him, the sunlight breaching the shrine's entrance back lighting his body, making the dark red parts of his hair glow just as brightly as his eyes. It traced all the outer contours of his silhouette, emphasizing the strength of his muscles, the richness of his skin tone and vaguely making it look like he was glowing with some inexplicable aura. Despite the heavy heat his skin was cool to the touch as I held his arm between us, watching him pause mid step and level those arrogant laser eyes on me. Apparently he knew why I'd grabbed him, if his clipped statement of "There isn't time for this now." was anything to go by.

That was fine with me. Making it quick suited my purposes.

Isis didn't spare a glance as she passed us by and continued through the doorway. I had to hand it to her, she knew when to get the hell out of Dodge. The daylight devoured her as she escaped out the exit and it felt better to know I wasn't gonna have a third wheel watching me.

"Induced Explosion-" I began. That hadn't been what half our argument was even about but he'd asked so fine, I'd let him know what I'd been thinking just this once.

His eyebrow perked up as he stared at me warily, apparently interested to hear what I'd say next despite his previous comment. Searching for a way to phrase what I needed to without sounding simpering or weak was harder than I'd thought it would be.

"I had a reason for playing it." Was what I landed on. "I didn't use it because of you." Technically I had, I'd used it to try trapping his Magician in the canyon because catching the guy mattered to him but I didn't owe him anymore of an explanation than that. The Pharaoh's eyebrows pinched together and he studied me with a point blank stare that should have been off putting, but wasn't. He was probably assessing my tone and my face. It's what I would have done. "Everything else I said; that still stands." I concluded for him, to make that crystal clear. He could take it, or leave it. Apologizing was something I was still getting used to with my own brother, in my own mansion – spilling my guts here where anyone could listen in just beyond the doorway was humiliating. I wasn't sure it'd been worth the sacrifice of my pride until a moment later when the tense expression he'd been wearing let up a little.

"Alright." He concluded. The look he gave me wasn't warm or friendly, but it was confident. I'd take that third option over the other two any day.

His wrist maneuvered in my grip until he could grab my arm back and clasped it for a second before we parted and he flicked his head towards the Shrine's exit. "Now come on. Andro Sphinx will stand little chance against the both of us."

"Hnh."

The arid Egyptian breeze was a relief compared to the humid darkness of the shrine.

It tossed around my coat and Atem's cape and hair as we marched down a long outdoor boulevard lined by large statues of ram-headed lions. The detail of the sculpts flanking us as we passed them by was impressive for the backwards time we were in, knowing the level of expertise and amount of man power that must have gone into quarrying the stone and then chiselling it into shape. From here I could see that the wide promenade stretched out to join with the looming structure of the Pharaoh's palace. Isis was up ahead, but I doubted sprinting to catch up with a vassal was the done thing for a king, especially within sight of his own castle, so instead we power-walked side by side.

Atem paused. I didn't bother turning around to see why until he called my name a second later.

"Kaiba."

He was frowning pensively at the floor and shifting his weight between his feet. It was almost imperceivable and the only nervous tell he had. I'd never noticed it in person, in fact I'd only caught it for the first time when re-watching old footage of his duels to study for my holographic Pharaoh's authenticity.

"Now that we've returned to the palace things will become -" He paused, eyebrows knitting together in concentration as he fished around inside of his head for the right words. "-more formal." He eventually decided upon.

I rolled my eyes.

His eyes sliced up to my face warily, like he was still debating saying something more.

"We won't be able to carry on so casually." He noted.

'Carry on' was vague. Did he mean we couldn't keep arguing and making up, or we couldn't keep stealing kisses like horny high schoolers? Most likely both.

"It's your country isn't it?" I countered deadpan, already seeing exactly where this conversation was going to go. "I thought the 'Pharaoh' could do whatever he wanted." I threw in a smirk of challenge which only made his serious expression intensify.

"He can." Atem agreed, throwing some warning into his voice. "But a wise one doesn't."

I crossed my arms, not impressed at all by that pearl of wisdom. It sounded like he was quoting someone, or something - it was in the abnormal inflections he'd used.

"Relax, Pharaoh. I get it." I replied boredly. Of course I got it; who the hell did he even think he was talking to? "In case you forgot, I have an empire of my own to run." I got the merits of not trying to run my company into the ground, or actively sabotage my own credibility as its leader. That was probably the bigger issue here, since Atem was going to be stuck spending the rest of eternity playing king to this bunch of moronic minions.

"Yes." Atem agreed, hesitantly, like he was working his way up to something he didn't really want to say. "But you come from a more modern society."

I scoffed. Sure, I wasn't going to get lynched or burned alive for being caught messing around with a guy - if that's what this conversation was even about - but the discovery would still probably tank KaibaCorp's stock for a while and rattle my shareholders and investors. Those old fossils had a stubborn view of the world and didn't like anything that shook it up.

"Like I said, I get it." I concluded for him, guessing that this conversation was more of a courtesy or managing of expectations than anything else, since we were about to be back in his palace. If this was a KaibaCorp exhibition I wouldn't let him embarrass with me in front of my public so I could relate.

I grimaced as I thought of something annoying. "Do I have to bow?" I snarked sarcastically.

Atem's apprehensive expression crested into a small grin at that, his eyes flashing like a red alert warning before he blinked slowly to hide the suspicious look.

"Only if I tell you to." He parried smugly.

"Hnh. That's a 'no' then."

Behind his mild smirk Atem huffed with amusement. We set off again in tandem toward the entrance to his palace.

**Yugi**

I guess it made sense that even in Kaiba's Soul Room technology worked exactly the way it was supposed to. I wouldn't have even thought about the cell phone still in my pocket if that hadn't been the case.

Yami was stuck in the main room and couldn't move far enough away from the holographic projectors in there to see the door's clay seal, so I decided to bring a photograph of it to him instead.

The camera on my phone flashed in darkness. Snapping a first picture of the seal worked, but even with the flash on dust and dirt left over in the grooves made the inscription hard to make out. The clay crumbled under my fingers a bit as I brushed the grit away. It felt very fragile so I pulled away from it quickly.

Grandpa had been telling me stories about his adventures and discoveries in Egypt for as long as I'd been old enough to say 'Pharaoh'. I new better than most people not to go messing with this kind of stuff. Clay seals like these - especially tomb seals - tended to carry mean curses and sharing my body with an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh had taught me this kind of thing wasn't to be taken lightly.

The flash went off again as I took a second photo. It was a lot clearer than the first. Yami and Seto watched me with interested eyes as I walked back over to them holding the phone out in my hand.

Yami took it from me cautiously as I handed it over to him and gripped it carefully, like he wasn't sure if it was going to slip through his fingers or not. The screen turned black in the minute it took me to get back to him and pass it between us. It made me smile to see how effortlessly Yami pressed the button to light the screen back up and entered my pin - just from muscle memory. I probably needed to change that. Actually, did Yami knowing it mean Kaiba knew the code to my phone too? That thought was a little creepy.

That feeling faded back a bit as Yami frowned at the screen before shaking his head. He answered my question before I even needed to ask, sounding a little bit discouraged.

"I can't read it."

"Is that a cell phone?" The little Kaiba questioned from his door. The look he gave the device as Yami handed it back to me was completely new. The blue of his irises seemed to shine as he stared at my cell with a wide-eyed look of complete fascination.

"It sure is." I chirped, handing it over for him because it looked like he might implode in disappointment if he didn't get to inspect it closer.

I'd almost forgotten how much cell phone technology had changed since I was little and it seemed like even at this age Kaiba was already interested in gadgets. Seeing Seto's total and unguarded curiosity was sort of charming. But this was still Kaiba after all. A bead of sweat dripped down my forehead as he instantly started trying to pull it apart, turning it around in his hands to the back and testing the seams for a way into it. The front camera flashed as he managed to partially peel off the battery cover which made him flip my cell and inspect the front instead.

"Whoever disturbs the Pharaoh's chamber will meet the Guardian's fangs." He read skeptically from the screen.

"Huh?" I glanced over his shoulder as he looked up from the photograph on the screen and scowled at me. "How can you read that?" I asked.

"I dunno." Seto shrugged, already dismissing that to spin the phone around again and finish sliding off the back.

"Do you know what this Guardian is?" Yami questioned from the side of his door, staring at Kaiba as the little guy paused his dissection of my phone to reply. It looked like I couldn't hold his attention but at least Yami could.

"Duh. It's the thing that just roared. It protects everything in here." Seto mocked, losing interest in my phone now that Yami was talking to him again.

That seemed counter-intuitive. How could it be a guardian when it had just done so much damage to this place?

Yami read my thoughts as I glanced at him and echoed them out loud for Seto to answer.

"What sort of Guardian destroys the very place it's charged with protecting?"

Seto's reply was bored and simple. "It used to be nicer." He scowled at the battery pack in my phone and turned back to me, suddenly disinterested with the device. "Something's wrong with it." He concluded as I took the two halves of my phone from him and slid them back together.

I guessed that was the information he'd been holding back.

Based on the sound the 'guardian' made I already had a pretty good idea of what it was. Also Kaiba could act crazy and say some unexpected things but was pretty predictable, when it came to stuff like this at least. Honestly, I think I'd be more surprised if it wasn't a Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

Yami nodded at me and crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Is there anything else you can tell us about it?" He demanded and narrowed his eyes as the little Kaiba tilted his head to the side slightly and smirked mischievously.

"You're gonna get devoured." He told us and then loudly slammed the door to his room in our faces.

**Atem**

There hadn't been any sarcasm or cynicism in Kaiba's face as he'd crafted an apology that was all but evident, despite the fact it lacked any of the usual words.

I expected that all the sand in Egypt would turn to water and the desert into a great sea before I ever heard the stubborn duelist mutter something as compromising as 'I'm sorry', or openly admit to his own failure of character. What he'd said still lacked any true explanation or justification for his actions – all he'd seemed willing to offer was the notion that such reasoning did indeed exist, even if revealing it would be too open of a gesture. His steely eyes had glared the ferocity of his intent into my face far more effectively than the words themselves and that was what I had accepted.

Now he was keeping stride with me again, facing forward with single-minded focus as we neared the entry way to my throne room. True feeling was beginning to return to my fingers and toes as my heart started to pound like a drum to the rhythm of our shared footsteps, the tentative comradery that accompanied all joint campaigns with Kaiba heating my blood with exhilaration. If he felt the same way then his now stoic face revealed nothing, but nor did mine. We were well matched in our determined expressions.

Isis lingered ahead of us, waiting as dutifully as ever for me to assume my rank and enter the chamber first. She bowed as I crossed the threshold.

"Guards!" I commanded. "Secure the doorways."

My priests Karim, Shada and Shimon were gathered in the throne room discussing matters among themselves. At my bellowing entrance that conversation ceased and all eyes fell upon me. With matching bows and near perfectly timed acknowledgements of "My Pharaoh." They fell to one knee before me as I ascended the stair case to stand in front of the throne. Their attention didn't break for any length of time, though each of the priests took turns fugitive glancing at the paler version of the 'Seto' they were familiar with as Kaiba strode past them towards the back of the chamber.

"When did you return, Pharaoh?" Shimon asked, a note of concern entering his voice as he looked over my appearance along with those of Isis and Kaiba. Much like Yugi's grandfather very few things slipped passed Priest Shimon. His brow creased, clearly unsettled. He knew full well my personal preference was to be clean and well presented. A handsome appearance was necessary to satisfy the Gods and a Pharaoh should always be garbed in clean linen and shod in white sandals. As I stood before him now I was far from immaculate. His well-meaning worry warmed my spirit. I would have liked to set the elderly priest's fears to rest but there was no time.

I held up my hand for their silence. Ordinarily I would bid them to rise and explain the situation at length, but we had only a short window of opportunity in which to act.

"Mahad, did he pass through here?" I demanded of them.

Karim and Shada exchanged confused glances before Karim answered with a succinct. "No, Pharaoh."

"And he still hasn't played another card to sneak off on either." Kaiba gruffly interjected from the side of the room. He'd found one of Seto's favorite shadowy corners and slipped into it as if he belonged there. The illusion of hiding was lost however, as the light of his Duel Disk illuminated him for all to see. It made his face look sharp and his eyes overly-tired as he swiped through the devices 'cards played' log.

"He can't have gone far." I concluded from that information. Not if Andro Sphinx was on foot as it seemed he must be.

I turned away from Kaiba and back to my priests, straightening my back to address them.

"Mahad is not himself. His body has been possessed by a servant of Anubis." I announced to the room. The news made Shada's brow furrow and Karim's eyes widen slightly in shock.

Even before the bandit Bakura had cast his dark shadow over me and my priests there had always been the ever-present threat of palace spies, thieves or assassins. Unlike during my life there were no threats beyond angry snakes and scorpions in this afterlife. I had been here in this world for just long enough to have begun to forget the daily dangers that once dogged me and it seemed my priests had done the same. It took a fraction of a second for Karim and Shada to recompose their stunned expressions but once so they wore the faces of my loyal and most trusted Sacred Guardians once more. They each nodded in understanding and their features grew attentive and focused. Not for the first time I was stuck by the great honor it was to be surrounded by and blessed with the loyalty of such unwavering souls.

"Karim." My priest kept his head bowed as he rose onto his feet, the strong muscles of his body involuntarily twitching in anticipation of my next order. "Seal the palace gates and all entrances into the city. Allow no one in or out."

"Yes, Pharaoh. I shall see it done." He turned to several of the men lining the room, "You, come with me." He commanded them and with a handful of the palace guard he swept out of the room. My patience with Andro Sphinx's attempts to flee was at an end. It was time to trap him, even if it was to be inside the palace with us.

In the corner of my eye I saw Isis clutch nervously at her neck, seeking the reassurance of the Necklace that she no longer wore.

"Don't worry. I won't allow him to escape again." I assured her. This I vowed. Until Mahad was himself again none of us could rest easily and Yugi's spirit couldn't be safely freed from whatever dark corner of the Puzzle he was currently enduring. Large as my palace was it wasn't infinitely so; there were only so many places in which to hide. We would find him.

Now I turned back to Shada. "Rotating shifts of lookouts and archers are to be assigned to the palace rooftops and balconies. He cannot escape into the sky."

"It will be as you say." Shada confirmed, silently gesturing to another pair of palace guards to follow him as he too departed from the throne room.

Finally I turned to Shimon, bidding he rise with the wave of my hand. His joints didn't appreciate long amounts of time spent kneeling and with a grateful smile he slowly found his feet and folded his hands behind his back.

"Shimon, where is Seto?" I asked him. I'd noticed my High Priest's absence the moment I'd stepped into the room but only now was there an opportunity to address it. For a moment Shimon's eyes curiously darted over to Kaiba. He was still swiping through his Duel Disk but could apparently sense another's gaze on him. He glanced upwards to stare defiantly back at my priest before returning his attention to his device and pretending to ignore everyone and everything.

With an interested hum Shimon's eyes returned to mine to reply. "Still in the healing chambers, I'm afraid. The High Priest hasn't awoken since your battle against Anubis." Still? It had been days. "The blow to the back of his head was quite a strong one, so the physicians say." I cast my eyes around the throne room, over to the section of wall that had been colored red by the long smear of Seto's blood after Anubis had cracked his head against it. The mark was gone now, as was any other evidence of the battle. It seemed the room had recovered from the ordeal quicker than my High Priest had. I opened my mouth, only to have my next order anticipated fully by the priest before me. "I'll have the healers inform you of when he wakes." Shimon added and I nodded with thanks for his insight.

"What may I do, Pharaoh?" Isis asked, taking a step forward from further back in the room. Her hands were clasped dutifully in her lap and her shoulders were squared in a picture of resilience, but I knew full well that Isis must be just as drained by our time in the wilds as Kaiba and I were. As much as I understood that she wanted to help, to be part of the force working to return Mahad's body to him, I knew as I saw the hitch of her shoulders slump for a second in well-veiled exhaustion that I couldn't ask any more from her for now.

"Isis, I wish you to rest and restore your strength." I told her sternly, knowing that was contrary to what she was hoping to hear.

She opened her mouth, as though to protest my command, but thought twice as Kaiba's eyes flicked up from his Duel Disk to pointedly stare at her. She caught his solid blue leer and returned it with her own. I didn't know what silent message was being conveyed between the two, or that they had formed any sort of bond to facilitate such communication in the first place, but whatever the wordless exchange was Isis slowly closed her mouth and then turned back to me. With abject hesitation she bowed at the order. "Yes, of course."

"Wise advice, my Pharaoh." Shimon chuckled. An amused undercurrent of suggestion ran through his words. "Perhaps that could stand to be heeded by others, as well." He scratched his nose, feigning an absent-minded innocence as I stifled a sigh at his none too subtle hint.

Though it was tight lipped the priest's jovial manner at least brought a small smile to Isis's lips and she blinked slowly before stepping away. "I shall see to it that early meals are prepared and the royal baths are warmed, should whatever heedence Priest Shimon is recommending be observed." She noted and at that softly glided out of the room.

Just the suggestion of a hot bath made my muscles ache as if raising their hands in support of the idea, but how could I rest while Andro Sphinx still held the ability to escape? Once Karim and Shada had confirmed my orders were in place perhaps then there would be time for a bath. A jolt of delirious sensation cut through me as a new and interesting idea sprang to mind. Perhaps I could coax Kaiba into joining me?

I doubted he'd agree to it without some kind of challenge or a taunt. That made the idea even more attractive. The throne room wasn't the appropriate place for such thoughts and I batted away the mental image of peeling open Kaiba's black flight suit to reveal the alabaster skin beneath to the open air even as the scene desperately tried to settle at the forefront of my mind. It was questionably vivid and even more powerful than any similar impulse had ever been before simply because now it stood a chance of actually happening.

With a cautious swipe of my eyes I glanced over to him, wondering if he was paying any attention to us or still pursuing his Duel Disk. The later was the case, but that swiftly changed as his eyes narrowed at the display and with an irritated "Tch." he glanced upwards to lock eyes with me.

"He just played a card." Kaiba growled.

What had he in store for us next? My fingers flew across my Duel Disk to conjure up my own display as Andro Sphinx's next move was revealed. What spell could he possibly conjure with Mahad's body so taxed?

"Dark Renewal." I noted aloud.

Pegasus's equivalent Duel Monsters card had imagined the casket as a western-styled coffin adorned with a vaguely Gothic crucifix but the true spell conjured a vessel closer to a sarcophagus in appearance, though the golden detailing and magical star adorning the front remained much the same. It was a spell rarely used by Mahad, intended for rapid recovery not from physical wounds but from magical exhaustion. Its impracticality had led my magician to regard it as something of a failure despite the length of time he'd put into developing the technique, for once sealed within it the spellcaster was bound to the confines of the coffin for the length of their recuperation.

"It seems Andro Sphinx is trying to reinvigorate Mahad's body before striking out at us again." I noted with the beginnings of a smirk. "We can use this to our advantage. While Dark Renewal is in effect Andro Sphinx will be trapped inside the sarcophagus." I closed down the Duel Disk display and flipped over the implication in my mind as if it were a card. "That means he'll have chosen somewhere dark and disused to hide it; somewhere that it won't be found by priests or servants."

Shimon scratched his chin thoughtfully as though considering it a riddle. "There are several cellars that don't see much use in the kitchens, the old temple catacombs, empty servant quarters, perhaps even an especially shady stable stall." He mused.

All of them were good suggestions, and perfect places to hide the magical coffin.

"Arrange for those places to be searched. Have the guards turn over every dark and quiet place in the palace." I stepped down from my throne, crossing towards a brazier held ensconced to the throne room wall. "Kaiba and I shall begin with the catacom-" I reached upwards to pry the torch free from its holding but the lingering cold in my fingers stopped them closing as quickly as I bid them and the torch fell from my grip to scatter hot coals over the floor. A flash of red hot pain smarted my forearm.

"Argh!"

"My Pharaoh!" Shimon exclaimed, running stiffly toward me as I held my arm with my other hand and checked the damage. Kaiba's boots charged nosily across the floor to my side and in my peripheral vision I saw his long legs lash at the spilled coals to stamp them out as Shimon inspected my burn. It was bright red but small and had been quick, the shock of it prompting my reaction more than the pain itself leaving my arm with the residual tremble of adrenaline.

"It's not too bad." Shimon concluded as he turned my limb this way and that. "A little ointment will do it a world of good."

I nodded, one eye closed against the raw stinging sensation as Kaiba fished his assault on the coals and took a quick look at it from over Shimon's shoulder. He scowled as I caught him checking up on me and rebelliously crossed his arms, which only amused me despite the situation. It distracted me as Shimon's much warmer hands clasped my own, inspecting them for a moment before look back up into my face.

"Pharaoh. You're cold to the touch." Priest Shimon began sternly. It was the sort of tone I'd heard him take when he was about to give my Father unyielding council that he didn't wish to hear. "You would be better served by following the advice you gave Isis." I couldn't escape his deep gaze as he held my eyes with it and for the first time I saw an echo, of not Shimon, or Solomon Muto, but Yugi, who resembled his grandfather so much. Those gentle purple eyes filled with concern dried up any rebuttal I had before there was time to think of one. "I will have the guards search the catacombs and everywhere else of merit." He insisted, "You must recover your own strength."

Kaiba scoffed at the instruction, the noise tired and hoarse. Perhaps Shimon was right.

Even if I ignored my own limits, I still had to consider that no matter how hard I pushed myself Kaiba would follow suit, if only to prove he could. Running us both into the ground was a distinct possibility unless I tempered my instincts.

Shimon didn't relent until I finally blinked, agreeing to him and Yugi's eyes with a soft "Aha", as though I could have ever defied them.

His eyes twinkled as he smiled at me and fondly patted me twice on the hand. "Very good." With that all in place Shimon bowed to me. "Then excuse me, I shall get underway." He ambled out of the throne room with purpose and I sighed at the knowledge that I had just been bested by a master.

"That's it? You're just gonna do what he says?" Kaiba quipped in my priest's absence.

My simple nod made Kaiba grunt in protest, but otherwise he didn't press the issue. Few in the palace were as long-lived or as astute as Shimon. The priest was experienced in the handling of Pharaohs and shrewdly managed to bring them around to his manner of thinking, no matter how long the endeavor took. On this occasion it was more prudent to simply agree to his terms and trust the palace guard would be up to the task of finding Andro Sphinx's casket.

"Beyond lending four more eyes to the hunt there's little difference that we can make for now." The reasoning was sound and practical.

I suspected that Kaiba agreed - though his pride would forbid him from admitting it - as all he offered in reply was a huff and a sardonic remark. "Guess there's gonna be an intermission before round two."

"It seems so." I reluctantly confirmed.

Kaiba was a warrior through and through, ever eager for battle. It surprised me therefore that on this occasion he merely hitched his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. If even Kaiba wasn't champing at the bit for his next duel then it seemed that Shimon's suggestion was indeed the correct course of action, for both of us.

"How long will Dark Renewal last for?" He asked as he took hold of my arm and turned it around to get a good look at my burn. The pain was easy to bare by now, until something possessed him to prod the inflamed area with his thumb and I snatched it out of his hand.

I rubbed at the sore spot and sheltered it away from his bodily incursion as I answered him. "Given the state of Mahad's body, a day. Perhaps two."

"What's he thinking?" Kaiba's eyes flicked around the throne room for a moment, trailing up the columns and obelisks to the ceiling above. "He's an idiot to come back here. Our side has all the advantages."

At a first glance he was correct, but I believed there was more at work here than just what we'd seen. Unlike Sphinx Teleia Andro Sphinx was proving to be a thoughtful and patient opponent. "He has a greater purpose for returning to the palace." I concluded.

"I don't get it." There was a scowl on Kaiba's face but it hid contemplation instead of reflecting genuine anger.

"Nor do I." I admitted. "But I trust he will reappear and make his intentions known soon enough." Blinking slowly I turned away from Kaiba and back toward the exit Shimon had departed from. "Until then we should restore our energy, as he's doing."

"Hnh." We lapsed into silence as what remained of the throne room guards stared out impassively. Kaiba shifted at my side, looking just as out of place in my palace now as he'd done when first storming into this chamber demanding a duel, though now more fatigued and coated in dirt and small injuries. It seemed as if so much had happened since then, in such a short amount of time.

"What now?"

The question made me pause in my contemplation of him.

His pale lips parted slightly and look he gave me was expectant, as though he thought I was now responsible for occupying his time. I would have liked to have kissed him, to taste the connection between us again and re-strengthen it but while we had an audience – even an impartial one – that wasn't to be. Fortunately I could imagine a way to do so in a more private setting that would attract significantly less attention.

I stepped closer to Kaiba's body, near enough to slide my arm down the length of his longer one until our hands met and our fingers now instinctively meshed together. Practice was making perfect in this. I then pulled on him, taking a step backwards to lead him out of the throne room.

"Come with me."

Now that there was nothing more to be done my earlier idea held new merit.


	28. Chapter 28

**Atem**

Isis's departure couldn't have been more than a few minutes before our own. The slender lead made the bustle and swiftness of my servants even more impressive as they moved from place to place, already busy with the preparation of the royal bath.

They diligently went about their tasks, only briefly stopping to bow as Kaiba and I crossed outside into the royal family's private courtyard and paused there to give the servants free roam and the space to go about their duties.

Carved in the shape of a giant cross the royal bath was a sight to behold.

The bath's rim was a wall of stone reaching up to my knee that made it appear shallow at first glance, barely more than a wading pool, but inside of those walls a deep well had been carved and filed with crystal clear water that colored slightly green to the naked eye. Two levels around the inside acted as in-built stone seating. The first was deep enough to accommodate my father's height and the second of the two levels was shallower, carved into the walls of the bath at my mother's command when I was a child so I could join them as they bathed without fear of slipping down under the water. We'd once bathed here together every morning and evening. It was a ritual, a normalcy of our family, one that I missed without them now that I could remember it well enough to do so. It was a symbol of our family's closeness that had been reaffirmed each sunrise and sunset. Though it was rare even my Uncle had been known to join the three of us on occasion and I supposed if we'd have known of Seto's lineage from the beginning he would have grown up sharing in this space too instead of bathing in the communal baths of the priesthood.

Many fond moments from my childhood had happened here. There had been water fights and contests of holding my breath with Father and singing songs to the Gods with Mother as she washed my hair. Those precious moments were made both familiar by memories of my life and strange by my time as the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, alone and disconnected from my family.

To Yugi bathing had simply been part of his routine and never anything more than that, but now that I was myself again I felt very differently about the matter. To me there was nothing in the world better than a hot bath in the open air with my loved ones. There was a sacred and divine peace to being held embraced by the sun, the water and breeze all at the same time.

My servants moved fluidly across the space, quietly placing down bowls of dried figs and honey on the golden lip that lined the wall of the bath. It was inlaid with stripes of flawless ivory and gleaming lapis lazuli that complemented the bright blue glaze of the ceramic vessels. Mana often teased me for preferring the food of commoners to the various delicacies expected to best please a Pharaoh's tongue, but sweet dried figs were an exception.

A servant girl of about my age and Téa's shape who I knew to be one of Shimon's favorite chambermaids was scattering the heads and petals of blue and white lotus flowers onto the surface of the water while a stronger, heavily muscled manservant ferried freshly fired rocks from the courtyard's kiln to the pool and cast them into the depths to quickly heat the bath to a temperature just short of steaming. An older servant who wore the leather apron of one of the healing chamber attendants moved around the lip of the bath in slow and steady strides, placing down ceramic jars of creams, balms and mints. The smell of freshly lit Kyphi danced on the wind as yet more vassals moved around the area, placing down piles of clean linen, pouring wine from pitchers and setting out a large jug of the beer that Seto was partial to and the clay straws with which to drink it.

I took a deep breath, savoring the sweet smell of my home. The rich scents of wine, saffron, cinnamon, and sandalwood breathed new life into my body as the fragrance of the Gods permeated the air and settled there like a welcoming blanket. Kaiba watched me warily as I inhaled the aroma and glanced around the grand patio, noticeably avoiding looking at any of the passing female servants whose simple dresses exposed their breasts with a flushed scowl of embarrassment. I chuckled at him, which made him shoot his grimace at me instead.

What he'd seen in the visions of Necromancy seemed to have bothered him far less than coming face to face with innocent displays of partial nudity. I wanted to address my past actions with Kaiba, I realized, to have him know my feelings, but I wasn't sure how best to talk about what we had seen in the canyon properly.

"I'm sorry you had to see that." I tried. My words were quiet and burdened with a heavy weight. Did Kaiba now think less of me since witnessing my past? His respect was something precious made all the more valuable for its innate fragility. Did he now think of me as a hypocrite, and was I? Self-doubt had no place in the hearts of anyone wanting to do battle against Seto Kaiba, a fact he may well choose to remind me of if given an opening to do so.

"Tch! Then tell them to put on more clothes." Kaiba snapped, flushing slightly and steadfastly glaring off at a wholly unremarkable wall, away from my servants as they went about their duties.

"Not that." I sighed. Kaiba shifted uncomfortably at my side, dragging his eyes away from the safety of palace stone and risking seeing something unwanted as he glanced back to my face and studied it. "I'm talking about the spirits that Necromancy summoned."

I could feel his eyes on my face as Kaiba analyzed me. He crossed his arms with a toneless reply of "Andro Sphinx was using them as a distraction, and it worked." There was a pause, an interlude created as an opportunity for me to reply but I couldn't think of anything to say. Making excuses or justifying my actions only dishonored the dead. "It's not like you to fall for such an amateur trick." Kaiba added, though his voice remained largely free of sarcasm or contempt, as if he was merely making a note of it.

A second silence elapsed between us and as Kaiba pulled open his coat to pursue lighting a new cigarette it occurred to me that I was beginning to understand the mannerism. Like his subtle movements, innocuous noises and flippant emotions this new habit also had a function. It seemed to be a defense against things Kaiba didn't know how to face head on. I understood his reticence, too well. What was the correct reaction to watching a valued opponent sentence his subjects to their deaths?

"It's not like it matters now." Kaiba countered nonchalantly as he distracted himself with his lighter. He captured his cigarette between his lips and lit it. "Do you think I've never killed someone?" The question settled into the air with the softness of a stone. Only now was their any hint of accusation in his voice. He made it sound like I was threatening his credibility. There was no need for it. I knew full well that Kaiba had been capable of murder in the past. Likely with a gun, or some other modern tool to make the act as efficient and impersonal as it could be. However, from what I had observed Kaiba was more partial to threatening death than delivering it.

"I've known you to bluff about the deadliness of your creations in the past." I noted as I raised my eyebrow and stared him down. His expression turned into a probing glower.

"You got any proof to back up all that hot air?" He replied, breathing out a mouthful of smoke to mix into the sweet smell of incense and turn the aroma slightly sour.

"I do." It was an insight that Yugi had stumbled upon while studying for one of his school exams. "In Death-T you sentenced us to the Electric Chair Ride, boasting the lethality of it's 'one million volts.'" I began, trying to recount exactly how Yugi had explained the concept to me. As the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle I would've been able to share Yugi's understanding of the concept, but I no longer had the benefit of being able to refer to his knowledge.

"And?" Kaiba prompted, sounding bored and disinterested.

"And someone with your technical abilities would know that volts mean nothing. The amperage decides the deadliness of electricity, not the voltage." I concluded. I believed that was accurate but couldn't remember the information. Not precisely. The realization that I couldn't recall it perfectly washed over me like a tide of ocean water, coating my skin in a salt of dread that itched and irritated me. Forgetting things over time wasn't abnormal, but if I'd begun to forget this then had I begun to forget other things too? Were there other fragments of conversations that had already slipped away without me noticing and would others continue to do so as my afterlife stretched onward? Eternity was a long time. Was it so long that it would slowly erode away all of my memories of my time in Yugi's world?

I felt as though I'd just noticed a stray thread dangling loose in the tapestry of my mind and now that I knew it was there dreaded that it was just the first precursor to some great unraveling.

No. That wouldn't happen.

Yugi was – had been - my closest confidante. Forgetting his words or his friendship wasn't an option and I wouldn't allow it. Nor those of any of my friends. I'd hold onto each of those memories tightly, no matter what.

With a derisive scoff the part of Yugi's world most stubbornly determined to linger spoke again.

"Try explaining all that to anyone in the palace." Kaiba snarked, before adding "I'll wait." In sarcastic mockery.

Kaiba's poor humor had a point. A Pharaoh of Egypt shouldn't know anything of electricity.

"At least that version of you made it quick." Kaiba added with finality, returning to the previous topic while exhaling a burst of smoke that drifted lazily in the air. He watched the tongue of vapor disperse into the sky before sneering nastily. "Being insane or a drooling vegetable for the rest of your life is much worse than death."

"What?" The backhanded comment took me by surprised, as though Kaiba had struck out against my life points directly without warning. I glanced at him sharply, demanding he explain himself even as I already suspected what he would say next. Kaiba was a diligent adversary. I doubted much of my past had remained hidden from his scrutiny while he searched for ways to get the upper hand over me.

"You can't honestly believe that I don't know about all the crazy people you left babbling around Domino? Or that Yakuza stunt you pulled on the escaped convict that held up a Burger World." His voice and features were both bathed in a coarse stoicism. I couldn't read the intent behind his words but I suspected he was trying to anger me to some end. Our eyes narrowed at each other with the promise of some otherwise unfinished business as his expression riled me.

When I'd first emerged from the Millennium Puzzle in Yugi's time I recalled a rage and wrath, but couldn't remember what fueled it or why. Yugi's various aggressors had become a welcome outlet to those vengeful feelings and being 'merciful' had been the least of my concerns, yet all my Penalty Games were intended to leave their recipient better by their completion. Kaiba himself was a prime example – had I not given him the opportunity to piece his heart back together there was no telling what other dark path he might have walked.

"Death denies people the chance to change." I firmly contested, with the very duelist I was debating as my deciding piece of evidence.

I could tell I'd fallen into some verbal snare as Kaiba smirked triumphantly, as though he was about to summon one of his Blue-Eyes White Dragon's onto the field. "It sure does." He agreed, pointedly locking his eyes with mine. I frowned, realizing as he intended for me to the innate hypocrisy in those words. Death denied the chance for improvement and atonement, yet to Kaiba's condescending point it was exactly the state I was most willing to perpetuate myself in, to his narrow-minded way of thinking.

My irritation abated as Kaiba's victorious smirk lessened into an expression as close to honest curiosity as I'd ever seen on his face. "Why are you so determined to stick around here instead of trying to cut it in the real world? Because your afraid of changing?" The bright blue of his eyes was as piercing and intense as ever but his tone was utterly bland. I couldn't recall if Kaiba had ever asked me something so bluntly before.

If Kaiba was going to reign in his temper and be straightforward without bursting into angry shouts or storming away then I wanted to return the sentiment and give him an honest answer, but in this moment I didn't know what that answer was. "I'm not afraid." I parried back, feeling the need to say that without knowing why. Even if I had been 'afraid', it would have been natural to feel that way. I'd only just regained my memories, my name and my identity. Was it cowardly to want to preserve those things? No. But there was something more to it. Something I didn't want to confront. I could feel it prowling around in the shadows on my mind waiting to pounce on me with comprehension.

Kaiba's eyes darted around my face as I was rendered silent by my own sudden pensiveness.

"It's fine." He concluded, before gruffly adding as though it was intended to appease me. "People don't change. Not unless they have to."

That wasn't true.

Yugi had changed. He'd grown in confidence and courage into an indomitable force of good and kindness. Joey had as well. His boundless energy and enthusiasm had carried him from a novice to being one of the toughest duelists in Japan in such a short amount of time. Even despite his belief to the contrary Kaiba had changed too - and continued to do so. He was change incarnate, ever embodying all of the destruction, creation and chaos it demanded. Seemingly he had both an endless capacity and an unlimited potential for change and once he was returned to his own dimension I didn't doubt he would continue to do so.

It stung like the scratch of a cat to realize I envied him for that, and I was able to place the feeling I didn't want to face. It wasn't that I was afraid to change, it was that I feared I was no longer able to. Yugi's friendship had changed me and because of it I'd been able to return to who I truly was, but now with that journey finished it felt like my ability to change for better or worse had come to an end. Suddenly I imagined myself to be a heavy rock in the middle of Kaiba's river, watching his rapids rush passed me toward a destination I would never see. It had never bothered me before, not for the length of time I'd spent in my afterlife, but now that I had that picture in my mind it refused to be dismissed.

"People do change. Some more than others." I settled on.

Kaiba rolled his eyes, apparently willfully blind to that same character trait that I found appealing enough to be jealous of.

"Do you really feel that nothing has changed you?" I pressed, matching his earlier tone by making my question blunt and to the point without any inflections or inferences. "That the duelist before me today could just as easily build another Death-T tomorrow?"

"I can - whenever I want." Kaiba hissed, suddenly defensive. "And no." He crossed his arms ever more tightly across his chest. "It was an indefensible legal liability." He muttered with a sour face, saying nothing more than that on the matter.

"We've seen the worst of each other." I noted. We'd even coaxed it out of one another.

"Hnh." Kaiba grunted in reply, before rounding on me in challenge. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet about 'us'?" He quipped smartly, pronouncing 'us' strangely like it was a new word he'd just invented.

I closed my eyes and hummed as though seriously considering it, if only to see Kaiba's arrogant expression falter slightly.

"Never." I answered with a sure smirk. After all, the advantage of seeing Kaiba at his worst was the anticipation of next seeing him at his best. And perhaps seeing him in other new and interesting ways as well.

Using a long wooden pole with a hook on the end two of the servants worked in unison to guide a dark purple cloth of fine quality over the bath's stone scaffolding and secured it to create a shield against the sun. With it in place and a final heated stone plunged into the water I judged the bath to ready. I squeezed Kaiba's hand covertly with my own and made my way across the courtyard to test it.

Decorative urns, tall potted ferns and four stone benches lined with plump pillows made L-shaped seating areas around the bath for those wishing to cool off or dry themselves. Kaiba followed behind me and made his way over to the nearest one, swiping away a cushion as he lowered himself to sit on the seat. His arms and legs crossed in a smooth well-practiced motion to create a series of sharp angles and strong lines.

"So did you really dragged me out here just to watch you take a bath?" He deadpanned, his eyes watching my movements carefully as I teased away the sandals from my feet and allowed the stone stairs inlaid with turquoise that glittered green in the sun to usher me up to the lip of the pool.

"No." I replied shortly as I stepped down the first of three identical stairs on the other side that vanished beneath the waterline. I paused, trying to adapt to the temperature of the water even while the stairs tempted me further, wishing to guide me down into the pool's depths. The feeling of the hot water lapping over my bare feet was heavenly, as if the sensation had been crafted by the God's themselves. I turned back to Kaiba and smirked, determined to have him in the water with me if only to see him try to smother a matching feeling of ecstasy beneath his usual surliness. I could only imagine what his expression might look like caught between two such extremes and I expected it would be funny. "I want you to join me." I added, breathing a challenge into my tone and quirking an eyebrow at him tauntingly.

Kaiba's legs crossed slightly tighter as he unerringly stared at me. "Why?"

His tone was skeptical and his eyes narrowed with suspicion, as if the concept genuinely confused him. I'd thought the motivation to do so should have been obvious but Kaiba could be curiously dense at times. Apparently this was one of them.

I took a different approach.

"Because you smell like -" I paused for less than a second, searching for an appropriate example, "-a gaming convention." In fact the resemblance to that smell was quite uncanny now that the memory of Yugi and our friends visiting one came to mind. "That smokes." I added for completeness's sake as the harsh stench of his cigarette pinched my nose.

Kaiba paused from smoking and curled his lip to look both offended and disgusted before covering the expression up.

"Can you either stick to ye olde analogies, or modern day ones? The half and half is annoying." He complained sarcastically before taking a final huff of his cigarette and dropping it onto the floor to stamp out with his foot. No sooner did he lift his boot back up from doing so than a servant darted under his feet to retrieve the refuse with a burst of speed that made Kaiba flinch slightly and then snarl beast-like at the passing vassal.

"Fine. Then you smell like the morning after the final night of Wepet-Renpet" I easily countered with a goading shrug. "Which also smokes."

He glared down at the servant who was scrubbing the remains of his cigarette off of the stone floor tiles as she stifled a giggle. Fortunately she was unable to see his grumpy glower. Kaiba rolled his eyes and looked back to me. "Scalding, I assume." He replied in Japanese, slipping out of my language at the reminder that he'd been speaking it in the first place. His eyes warily tracked the servant girl who had laughed at him as she finished cleaning the floor and retreated backwards.

Had the request for the bath to be arranged not been so hasty these lower ranking servants would have finished their duties and vanished long before the Pharaoh's arrival so that the elite vassals named official care takers to the throne could assume their places and proceed to manicure my nails, wash my hair and disrobe me, but I wouldn't wait for them this time and I doubted Kaiba would appreciate being catered to while in such a compromising position as a bath, or enjoy the presence of the royal musicians and entertainers. Kaiba watched even the few servants that were here like he suspected they would accost him at any moment and adding any more attendants would only hinder my campaign for his company. Some privacy was needed.

"Leave us. Pull the drapery closed as you go." I called out to the few who remained. With dutiful bows each one put down whatever object they had been carrying or seeing to and obeyed, quietly filing out of the courtyard. With a swish of weighty fabric the thick red curtains that lined the entrances were freed from their bonds to hang heavily across the doorways, blocking them.

"The royal family is not to be disturbed while those curtains remain shut." I explained to him.

As I suspected, the tension in his shoulders lifted slightly at the promise of privacy. He looked away sharply and blushed with embarrassment as I began to undress.

My cloak was near ruined and only held in place around my neck by a makeshift knot. The purple cloth fell free of my shoulders as I untied it. I let the material fall where it pleased, similarly discarding the winged pauldron that adorned my shoulder and the necklace that hung loose over my chest. Disrobing wasn't a duty that usually fell to me and catching the tiny latches to undo the gold bands that spanned my arms and legs was delicate work. With the promise of a warm bath so imminent I had no patience for such trivialities and so ignored the sum of my jewelry. Instead I unclasped the thick band of gold around my waist and pulled my robe free over my head before tossing it aside to join the remains of my vestments. Atop the lip of the bath I placed my Duel Disk and the Millennium Puzzle, making sure it and the soul it harbored remained within arm's reach. If Seto was here he would no doubt chide me for my impatience; for disrobing myself and for denying the royal servitors the chance to perform their duties. I hoped he would wake soon as I stepped down to immerse myself in the bath water.

Being here, just freshly submerged in the warm water with my eyes closed and on the cusp of relaxing stirred a note of paranoia that Seto would sweep in passed the curtain at any minute and demand I see to some neglected papyrus or review the approval of a new law.

As my father's son I was reluctant to admit that at times I found the more economic and less interesting aspects of being a Pharaoh... trite. By Seto's account I 'shied away from such duties like an ill-trained donkey'. He often used the routinely schedule of my morning and evening baths as an opportunity to ambush me - when he knew full well I had no obvious or dignified avenues of escape - and coerce me into attending to the most pressing matters of the day, or demand answers to otherwise dull affairs of statecraft that I'd been procrastinating from addressing. He was the only person brazen enough to willfully ignore the privacy partition, if only so he could corner me and vent his frustrations with the 'lackadaisical' speed of my work. Though unconventional his method did indeed ensure that I attended to my duties on time and with the departure of Mother and Father I enjoyed the intrusion. My baths would otherwise lack any company at all without his presence and the lonesomeness was unsettling, I now found.

I wondered what he would think of Kaiba and I?

I'd have to ask him once he regained consciousness. With that concluded I poured out a cup of blood-colored wine and leaned back, enjoying the taste of pomegranate and grapes as the water lapped at my skin and cleaned my wounds. They'd stung as I lowered myself into one of the pool's carved seats and the skin surrounding the burn on my arm felt sore and tight but not enough to cause outright pain or drive me out of the bath. Wounds healed rapidly in the afterlife. With a bit of balm and a restorative rest not much more would be needed to mend the sensitive areas.

After half of minute of glorious relaxation a rebellious "Tch!" cut through the peace. I opened my eyes as I heard the familiar leathery sound that the material of Kaiba's coat made when he shifted. He'd already freed one arm from the white garb and glared at me point blank as he noticed me looking.

"I'm getting in. Because _I_ want to." He emphasized, fixing me with a leer that told me not to dare contradicting him.

"Of course."

He only grunted in reply to my taunting agreement, but continued to undress.

With several arcs of his arm he folded his white coat into a neat square and place it onto the bench, positioning it on a portion of the seat shaded by the shadows of a sweeping blue awning. Kaiba's boots soon followed, taking a concerted amount of effort to yank free of the length of his legs before he slid across the floor and tucked them under the shady bench. The mechanical motions of neatly tidying his garb away and arranging his shoes side by side, they were familiar. Telling Kaiba this wasn't worth the trouble, but his habit was the same as my High Priest's.

"Are you just gonna keep staring at me?" Kaiba huffed without looking up as he turned his attention to removing his Duel Disk and undoing his bracers.

I shrugged in the picture of feigned apathy, the water embracing my shoulders rippling slightly at the gesture. "I'm curious."

My High Priest and Kaiba were similar in many ways but they weren't without their own deviations. I wanted to see how many more differences I would find between the two of them when Kaiba's body was bared to me.

For a moment Kaiba only stood utterly still. His lips drew together and his eyes narrowed at nothing. In those few seconds he looked unsure and irritated but quickly recovered with a defiant scowl. His belt was hastily discarded and Kaiba unzipped the length of his suit in a rush, the material reluctant to be pried away from his sweaty skin. With gritted teeth he peeled it free from his neck and left shoulder to reveal a long and straight scar across the joint. No doubt a token of the surgery Kaiba had mentioned earlier in passing. What I hadn't known to expect was the lasting imprint of a series of strange circular scars that trailed upward from his wrist and dotted the base of his neck around the sides. They were few and far between, only numbering three on his forearm and two on his neck but the irregularity of their placement and discoloration made them stand out against the paleness of his skin.

My brow pinched as I frowned at Kaiba's scars, ignoring the glare of warning he threw at me in my peripheral vision.

They looked like burns.

"From a cigar." Kaiba sneered, making the announcement as he denied eye-contact with me and scoffed.

He didn't need to say more than that. Anger pricked me and even the relaxing aroma of incense and warm water couldn't keep it at bay. How was it that despite being born into the world thousands of years into the future that Kaiba's upbringing had been harsher than that of Seto's own?

Kaiba snatched the other half of his suit away from his right shoulder to reveal another pair of cigar burns peppering the flesh above his right wrist, but this time they weren't alone.

"You don't get to know about this one." Kaiba cautioned me with a growl. He pulled his right arm slightly behind his body to faintly block my view of a large, jagged horseshoe-shaped scar carved into the meat of his inner forearm as he folded up the black suit and placed it with his coat.

I nodded wordlessly, agreeing to his terms.

My prior eagerness to see Kaiba's exposed skin was now tempered, even as his abdomen and legs were revealed to be unmarred beyond the wounds he'd acquired during his time in my afterlife. As expected, his body was long, thin and powerful, pallid and strong like the coils of a great white serpent. It was interesting to discover his shoulders were a little less broad than the cut of his coat would suggest and his pale skin was stretched perhaps a little too tightly over the ribs beneath his armpits. Nevertheless, he was toned and trim with well defined upper body muscles and a line of downy hair trailing south from his navel to disappear into his underwear. That was unexpected, and somehow appealing to me.

Kaiba crossed his arms over his chest again as a flush of pink stained his irritated face as he stood awkwardly, wearing only a pair of skin-tight black boxer briefs with the KaibaCorp logo on the waistband. His hands clenched into fists and he side-eyed his empty clothes as though seriously debating climbing back into them before the bridge of his nose crinkled. He sniffed the air around him twice and muttering something about 'gaming conventions' before squaring his shoulders and marching toward the pool with stoic determination. His long legs needed only to ascend the first stair until he could step onto the submerged stone steps on the other side. The water parted as he lowered himself into the bath opposite me, hissing through his teeth like an angry snake as the water lapped into his various cuts and wounds.

**Kaiba**

Baths weren't my thing.

The idea of sitting around and stewing in my own discarded filth was disgusting. Despite that, after spending so long running around the desert being almost fully immersed in clean hot water had its charms. I hissed getting in as all of my cuts stung under the waterline but with every second that passed by each of my aching muscles went from feeling like steel spikes to warm rubber. As soon as the discomfort went away I rubbed down my arms and legs to get the grit and sweat off of my skin and it felt like I was peeling off an exoskeleton I hadn't known about. This still didn't compare to the perfectly pressurized spray of a hot shower, but it was better than nothing. I didn't get 'home sick' but I missed my mansion just for the showers. When I was Mokuba's age the shower in my en suite had been the only place Gozaburo ever gave me any damn privacy in. I'd gotten into the habit of making each one as long as possible. Like hell Gozaburo had let that last though. After the fun little incident that gave me the scar Atem had non-verbally agreed not to ask about I got cut back to only four minute allotments of unsupervised time in the washroom and when they were up some goon would barge down the door and drag me out, no matter what I'd been doing.

Fun times.

We sat and soaked without saying anything for at least five minutes. I didn't want to talk about my damage, or anything else. The Pharaoh seemed to get that.

I doubted this was the sort of fun pool party he'd been imagining when he told me to join him but he seemed to be enjoying himself anyway. He reclined backwards with his eyes closed as obnoxious flowers floated around us, lifting his arm up every once in a while to drink something that looked a lot like wine or snag a piece of fruit from a nearby bowl. Atem looked completely calm. Calmer than I'd ever seen him before outside of being unconscious. The waterline bobbed up and down his chest as he slowly breathed in and out, filling the hollows of his collar bones and riding up the base of his neck.

It was unbelievable he could be so relaxed after appearing that formidable as he'd undressed in front of me.

I'd already known to expect the toned bronze skin from that involuntary peep show back at the lake and I'd unwillingly got a good look at the outline of his body while he'd been walking around in clingy wet clothes for the while after. What I hadn't been expecting was exactly how powerful he looked almost naked. He'd left all the obnoxious jewelry on apart from the necklaces and Puzzle and stood confidently over the pool like Adonis, or some other fantastical mythological figure. Somehow he was muscular and masculine despite his small stature, dripping with an ease and pride even while stripped that felt almost primal.

The bastard made being clothesless look easy, like he'd been designed to make me feel inferior.

It's not as if there weren't any flaws though. He had a few cuts and bruises from this stupid misadventure and there was a smattering of dark stubble pooling in his armpits from obviously not keeping up with his apparently full-body shaving routine. His nipples were a lot darker than I'd have guessed and a humiliating gnaw of physical arousal shot through my body as my brain unhelpfully re-rendered them with perfect clarity at the front of my mind. The timing wasn't great. It was logical - he was ninety-six percent naked in front of me right now - but not great. It didn't help that the regal tone he'd used to order his servants and priests around with was apparently a huge turn on for reasons unknown. I'd never understood before what made me tick beyond basic physical stimulation, now there was suddenly too many things and the number was growing by the moment. Watching the way he moved and smirked when he dueled, or the commanding tone of voice he used to boss people about with targeted something inside of me. Even the demanding way he kissed and smugly taunted me had its appeal.

He distracted me from my cataloguing as he placed his cup back onto the side of the pool, swallowed down another piece of fruit and nonchalantly crossed the bath to sit next to me with a bowl of something in his hand. The water ran down all the shallow dips and muscular lines of his body in a way that made my mouth feel dry as he'd stood up to make his way over to my side and I had to look away from him to keep it together.

Oh.

Doing something along those lines was probably what he'd had on his mind when he'd lured me into the pool. Dammit it. The mood was now gone no thanks to Gozaburo and his fucking cigars.

"Kaiba." Atem called my name so I turned back to him and suppressed the pathetic urge to flinch nonsensically as one of his hands landed on my face.

I must have been clenching my jaw. It eased up a bit as he stroked a finger over the cut on my cheek, leaving behind a trail of something wet and tacky in the process. I slapped his hand away and wiped off the weird substance, holding the goop between my finger and thumb. It was amber, and familiar. But it belonged in beehives, not my face.

"Why are you smearing honey on me?" I demanded with a justified amount of suspicion.

Atem smirked. His eyes and gold bangles flashed in the sunlight, and even I couldn't tell which shone brighter. He wasn't deterred by having his hand thrown off. He just scooped up even more on his fingers from the bowl in his hand.

"The healers use it to dress wounds." The water sloshed as he sidled back up to me and went right back to what he'd been doing, coating all my little scratches and scrapes with it. I closed my eyes and just let him have his way. I guess I owed him that after accidentally sabotaging whatever else he'd had planned. Leaving so much sugar to sit on my skin sounded like an outbreak waiting to happen, but there was something soothing about the strokes and the feel of his fingers. Between them and the steaming water I was too mellowed to bother trying to fight him off again. It wasn't worth the effort.

He moved down my body and away from my face to my upper arm, working it onto one of the cuts he'd given me with Excalibur out in the forest before looping back up and massaging some of it into the surgical wound on my shoulder.

"And to fade scars." He added.

I opened my eyes just enough to glare at him as he pulled up my forearm out of the water and traced a layer of it over the U-shaped scar.

He was pushing his luck.

Luckily for him he seemed to get that. With grunt he nodded at me and let go, leaning forward to nuzzle his nose against mine like an over affectionate pet before backing off to open up a foot of space between us in the water. Then started on his own body, lathering up the grazes on his elbows and the slice on his face before standing up in the bath with a flex of his legs so he could rub the rest into a scuff on his knee and what was left of the wound on his side.

The triangle of linen he was wearing as a loincloth clearly wasn't made to double as a bathing suit. I could see the outline of everything as he stood up and it plastered itself to his wet skin. It was completely useless, and he'd already flashed me once in the last few days.

"Why are you even bothering with that?" I questioned, jabbing a finger towards his underwear.

Atem glanced downwards before lowering himself to perch on the edge of the pool like a demented bird, I guessed to let the honey do its thing. "You're wearing yours." He commented as his eyes trailed down to my briefs under the water.

"Tch." I crossed my legs, hating that I was so predictable to him.

I'd rather have them on than go freeballing it in a semi-public open air bath. Now they were soaked though and I'd probably have to leave them out overnight to dry, so long as it didn't get too humid.

Atem's servants had hung a canopy over the bath. It was thick enough to blot out some of the sunlight but thin enough to see the clouds through. I eyed them to get a read on the weather. I was no meteorologist but up in the air clouds equaled turbulence so knowing how to read them was a basic aviation practice that kept pilots away from any unwanted hazards. Some cirrus clouds were hanging far up in the troposhere and below them a swarm of puffed up cumulus clouds were floating by. Ultimately they meant fair weather for the intimidate future. That suited my purposes.

If Mokuba was here the conditions would have been ideal for the cloud gazing game we used to play. It'd been a few years but we could do that when I got back, if he wanted to. I was gonna owe him a big chuck of leisure time to make up for getting caught in this mess and being away for days on end. Years ago I would have seen just hanging out as a massive waste of my valuable time. Now sitting down with Mokuba, watching some movies and playing video games sounded like a vacation. The market had been flooded with a lot of co-op games recently, catching up on those would make for good entertainment and we could get in some competitor analysis at the same time. Anything besides team games and Mokuba tended to get frustrated because I never let him win. If he wanted to beat me then he had to earn it and we both knew that wasn't going to happen. Mokuba liked games but he didn't have that drive, that need to win. Not like me and the half-naked dolt next to me covertly trying to lick honey off his fingers without being noticed.

"You wanna play a game?"

I ignored the way his pink tongue darted back into his mouth after curling around his thumb, or I thought I did.

To Atem it probably seemed like I was asking out of blue in more ways than one, but I was going to bet the King of Games wouldn't disappoint me anyway.

He watched me for a few seconds like he was sizing me up, so I stared right back. With a hum of amusement he accepted my challenge, casually leaning backwards even while everything about his face became less relaxed and more focused. "What's the game, Kaiba?"

I pointed upwards towards the sky and the thick cottony clouds that were lazing around up there. "Cloud gazing."

He perked an eyebrow at me.

"Choose a cloud. You get a point if you say it looks like an animal and the other person can't beat the resemblance with something else." It was hardly the most challenging game in the world, but it didn't take any pieces or a game board to play. Mokuba and I had gotten a lot of mileage out of it as kids just for that reason.

Atem smirked and despite how that expression usually went with him trying to piss me off it sent my pulse skyrocketing. Making people 'happy' wasn't my modus operandi and I wasn't hardwired for it, but every time I managed to drag one of his little grins of a stupidly deep laugh out his mouth it was like a jolt from Domino's electrical grid. He closed his eyes slightly, the lack of light darkening his irises to the color of his wine and quirked his eyebrow. "Even cloud gazing is a competition to you?" It sounded like a taunt but his tone was lukewarm which made it softer somehow.

"Everything's a competition." I countered.

"Alright then. I'll go first." He declared with so much confidence he must have been using up at least half of his nation's quota of it.

Atem blinked slowly and turned his head upwards to find a worthy candidate to represent him as his champion. He surveyed the sky like he owned it and maybe the Pharaoh did in his culture. The sunlight across the water reflected across his sharp jawline as his eyes darted around the clouds with that look of ultimate intent that he should trademark.

"That one." He selected, pointing up into the atmosphere. "It looks like a hyena."

Yeah, it had better be the most hyena-ish looking cloud ever to have existed for me to actually pick it out. With him sat on the edge of the pool and me still in it we were sat at different heights and looking at the sky from slightly different angles so 'that one' was just about as useless a direction as they came.

Between a cloud that looked like one of Mokuba's Capsule Monsters and another that looked like a Kuriboh with a knife stabbed into it I came up empty.

"Where?" I got up out of the water and sat down beside him.

He shifted over slightly so I could get closer to his center mass and properly follow the line of his finger upward with my eyes. It bought us a lot closer than I'd intended and I was going to blame my shiver on the temperature difference between the pool and the Egyptian air.

My face was right up against his and I was almost hovering over one side of his body, but I got a look at his 'hyena'.

"Looks more like a bear to me." I scoffed, almost directly into his ear. He inhaled quietly through his teeth but this close to him I heard it all the same.

"A bear's tail is shorter. It's definitely a hyena." Atem contested smoothly, turning his head slightly toward mine as he argued so that we were almost cheek to cheek and I could see the way his eyes blazed in way too many scarlet and crimson tones to be natural. "Look at the curvature of its spine." He traced the angle of his cloud's back, right down to the tip of its tail.

I wasn't convinced by his spine argument but I had to hand it to him that the tail was too long to be a bear, unless that bear had a fifth leg.

"Hnh. Fine. It's a hyena."

"My point." He concluded triumphantly like the haughty bastard he was.

I side-eyed his goading grin and tried to find something that would beat his mutant hyena.

The Kuriboh with a knife stabbed through it had smudged a little in the sky. Its body had stretched out into a more oblong shape that narrowed into a long neck with a lump on the end and the little pointed trails of wispy cloud were pulling away from the rest of the knife to look a bit like a bat's wing.

"See that." I pointed at it. It was a sad excuse of a dragon but it would do. "It's a dragon, with its tail coiled around its body."

Atem leaning his face against my shoulder so he could look directly up the line of my arm, then he pulled back and threw me the smuggest smirk I'd ever seen – and that was saying something.

"Kaiba," He drawled, playful and taunting and mocking all at the same time as he lowered his eyelids at me, "I'm sorry to tell you this but dragons aren't animals." With a dramatic pause he stretched out in self-satisfied nonchalance. "So unless we're now including mythological creatures I'm still winning."

"Tch!" He wished! Like hell I was going to hand him that advantage!

I covered his stupid teasing face with my hand and turned it away from me which only made him snicker into my palm. His backwards culture claimed anything they could stick an inappropriate head onto was some kind of god - allowing mythological creatures would only work in his favor.

Whatever! Atem ducked away from my hand as I did a sweep of the sky. I pulled my arm back like a catapult and shot it off rapid fire. "There, that looks like a chinchilla."

Atem's head whipped around to take a look and smacked me with his earrings as I switched to point in another direction. "And that one looks like an aardvark."

Watching his head pivot around like a spinning top was amusing. I chose another innocuous looking cloud right behind him and he leaned so far backwards he was looking at it upside down in an attempt to keep up. "That's definitely a platypus."

I crossed my arms with finality threw his smug smirk back at him with one of my own. "Unless you can contest them that's three points to me, Pharaoh."

He righted himself and didn't miss a beat.

"You ass! You're choosing animals you know damn well I've never seen before so I can't challenge you!"

Between fighting back a grin and pretending to keep a straight face he looked like he was trying to swallow an egg, whole. So much for the divine dignity of the Pharaoh. The combination of his point blank accusation and scandalized expression was the best thing I'd ever seen and I threw my head back and laughed at it until my diaphragm started to ache.

"Mhahaha. Don't be such a sore loser, Pharaoh." I mocked between breaths.

"This from the mouth of the worlds largest hypocrite!" Atem yelled, but despite shouting he couldn't hold in his own laughter anymore and it reverberated around the courtyard at exactly the same volume. I liked the sound but he was so loud I was surprised the guards hadn't come running in to see what was going on and break up the moment, or something equally dumb.

"Gumf!" I grunted in amusement as he smacked my arm and snaked his hand up it toward my head. A quick scrape of his fingers against my scalp set off fireworks as he snagged a handful of my hair and pulled our faces together.

His kiss was light but determined and tasted sweet, like summer fruit. It didn't stay that way for long. We set a new record - not that I'd been subconsciously timing our previous kisses - this one lasting long enough that I had to figure out how to breathe through it without breaking it off to inhale. Our mouths kept battling in this single kiss that kept on going and going, becoming even more assertive and domineering on both sides with each shift in angle and adjustment of our lips.

Atem's other hand was flush against my abs and I didn't know when he'd put it there, but it gave him the leverage needed to push us apart just enough break up the impromptu make out session. We got our breath back, listening to the breeze ripple through the awnings and the gurgle of the water. In a split second the Pharaoh's expression morphed into the one he got right before he called out the finishing move in a duel, and he pushed his arms against me to shove me backwards into the pool.

I resurfaced and had to cough out the petals from one of those ridiculous waterlilies or whatever they were that I managed to swallow as he stepped into the water, marched across the bath and then pulled himself against my body.

His hands gripped my shoulders as we touched noses but that wasn't enough direct contact for either of us so I smashed our mouths together again as Atem pushed me down into one of the carved out bath ledges and straddled me. I hissed at the spike of sensation as he pressed his erection against my sixty percenter in some weird new definition of dueling.

It felt like he was everywhere all at once; like he had more than the normal amount of hands or had summoned in a bunch of monsters as backup. He ran them though my hair, squeezed my biceps, hooked an arm around the back of my neck and stroked my chin with his thumb until I opened my mouth to groan and got a throatful of his tongue. I hadn't understood the appeal of slapping one tongue against another when he tried it the first time, but right now it felt damn essential so I mirrored what his was doing with mine so they could duel between our mouths. He used the arm around my neck for leverage and my hands found his hips under the water by feel alone. I couldn't tell who'd taken the first turn or if we'd started at exactly the same time but the bath water sloshed around between us, a drop of it splashing upwards towards my eye, as we bucked against each other.

The friction was incredible. Better than incredible.

Even through our underwear I could feel his pulse throb against mine with each grinding rub of our crotches, his breaths quickly devolving into hot ragged pants that dried the water on my skin. With a muffled 'tssss' my body quaked as his mouth left mine and he ran his superheated tongue over one of the thick trails of honey he'd smeared onto my face, lapping at my skin in firm self-indulgent strokes while never once breaking the rhythm of our hips.

What was probably minutes of this felt like seconds as a charge built up between us.

It should have been annoying, but not being able to clearly see what happened under the water worked better for me. Analytically I knew we were just dry humping, probably badly, and likely looked like a pair of idiots. This way we didn't have to see each others junk, or anything else that might put me off my game.

The arm around my neck tightened and my grip on Atem's hip bones did the same.

Logically I was probably holding onto him too tightly but the biological imperative to ejaculate had been riding in the back seat for years and now that it had the car keys it was clear I'd have to pry it away from the steering wheel with a crowbar. I felt like I was going to lose my mind and go insane if it didn't happen right the hell now!

The suspense didn't last long, for either of us.

The crown on Atem's head flashed in the light as he threw his head back, opened his eyes up wide and shuddered. The yellow stalks of his hair slapped me in the face but all of that was a distant irrelevance as I ducked my head under his jaw, pressing my nose into his chest as the explosive climax made my muscles clench and twitch.

I forced my jaws shut, managing not to make a sound other than a strangled gulp at the back of my throat that sounded like a fish drowning. Atem didn't have any of my weird conditioning not to vocalize and it figured a Pharaoh could be as loud as he damn well pleased in his own palace. The noise he made was somewhere between a soft roar and a deep chirp and so completely unique I immediately knew trying to recreate it in my hologram was going to be a hassle - if I ever got desperate enough to try programming my Pharaoh hologram to do 'that'.

Our chests buffeted against each other as we both panted and stared. That was the most intimate thing I'd ever done with another person and I felt just as dazed by it as Atem looked, but that expression didn't stick around on his face for long. He smirked at me and we ended up lip-locked again but it wasn't as deep or demanding this time. Instead it was soft and slow, which I preferred by comparison now that I could think again. My fingers were starting to feel numb and taking a twenty minute power nap sounded perfect even though this little jaunt into fantasyland had decimated my polyphasic sleep schedule.

Atem leaned back in my lap as I pried my fingers away from his hips, looking every bit as boneless as I felt. Even his hair looked less spiky - as if someone had found a remote and dialed down the global rigidity of his character model by twenty percent. He chuckled into my mouth and I shivered as his dark knuckles brushed against my crotch to run up the trail of hair below my navel. I couldn't go again for a while but the light touch was still a turn on and I guessed he didn't want to contact to end yet. He shifted around in my lap to sit back in the seat next to me, closing is eyes and hooking his arm around my neck to pull me down until I was closer to his level and had to lean against him slightly.

It felt... nice.

His shoulders were broad for his height, enough that I could rest my head on one at this new angle and feel the warmth of his skin under my cheek and listen to the subtle tempo of his breathing. It was strong and steady, like most things about him. I hadn't realized how far I sank into the feeling until water splashed back at me as I literally sank into the bath.

I pulled myself upright now wide awake with an irritated splutter and sat back up in my seat. Atem's crimson eyes flicked open and darted around my face like he was inspecting me before he drew the conclusion of "You're tired."

No shit, Pharaoh.

"Hnh." I was caught between the dueling impulses to throw that eagle-eyed observation in his face just to remind him who he was dealing with, or leave it alone since he was right and I'd just been fantasizing about taking a nap... and almost fallen asleep in the water. "So are you." I deflected. Ultimately it didn't really matter if he noticed I was tired so long as he was too. That kept the score even. Lying about it was apparently beneath him so instead he nodded shamelessly, not even bothering to try and deny it.

"Falling asleep in here without any attendants around isn't wise." Atem cautioned, looking pensive for a moment as he slowly cast his eyes around the courtyard. They lingered on my clothes, which made sense since I doubted he'd even be able to see any of his stuff after just throwing it onto the floor the way he'd done. "Let's get out. I'll find some clothes for you." He decided eventually.

"Yeah, I don't think we're the same size." I grunted. "And don't even think about giving me the other guy's clothes as a loaner." Getting back into my bloodied sweat-soaked flightsuit wasn't and appealing prospect but I'd be dead before anyone caught me wearing a dress, anything gold, or a stupid hat.

"Alright." Atem replied simply with a weary grin that I didn't like. I narrowed my eyes at him and he only shrugged in reply, wearing the same overly innocent face that Mokuba did right before he started messing with someone. He covered it up by starting to kiss me again lazily and lightly. Despite his suggestion he apparently wasn't in a hurry to get out of here if the extended make out session was any indication, but there was no way I was sticking around in the pool after what we'd just done.

"I'm not staying in this water now." I muttered between kisses.

With a hum of agreement he pulled back, grinning tiredly even though he still taunted me like he was at the top of his game. "Kaiba, you've assassinated the mood in just seven words."

"Next time I'll do it in five." I deadpanned.

Despite the comeback Atem looped his arms around my neck and pressed his nose against mine, holding it there for a long second before backing up and clambering off of the seat. He tossed a superior look over his shoulder at me as he strode up the stone stairs and out of the bath, picking up his Duel Disk and catching the cord of the Puzzle in his hand as he did so. There was a pause as he slid it back into place around his neck and waited for me to follow him.

Even knowing what was now in the water with me didn't motivate my body much. It took a lot of effort to gather up my legs and force my muscles to work again.

From the side of the pool Atem pulled out a rectangular piece of linen from a pile and tossed it to me as I stood up in the water. I caught it easily even as I staggered in place. Vertigo and lightheadedness from the hot water and lack of proper nutrition or hydration jumped me. I could feel him watching me as I stood there until my head stopped swimming and then held out what Atem had thrown at me over my body. The cut was simple but the fabric itself was soft and pleated. That was the only clue I had that it wasn't a towel.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" I glanced over at the Pharaoh. He might as well have handed me a bunch of jigs with no puzzle box and told me to reassemble the picture.

"Wear it, unless you'd prefer to to be naked." He replied with a raised eyebrow.

As if I'd do that. I wasn't going to walk around in just my skin with all my damage showing. Atem was watching me with obvious amusement as he selected a matching cut, like I was entertainment for him.

"Here. Just watch me." He added as he slipped it around his body. His hands brushed against the top of his loin cloth as he passed the material diagonally around his slim hips, tugged on the fabric to pull it tight to his skin and nudged his fingers under the waist line to tuck in one end. The other end he straightened to hang free at the front.

That was stupidly simple; I could have figured it out on my own. Within seconds I copied his demonstration, tying the stupid thing around me. Technically I hadn't compromised myself; it wasn't a moronic hat, gold or a dress. It was more of a skirt, or a kilt. On Atem it reached down to just above his knees. On me it was uncomfortably shorter but I was beginning to feel too exhausted to be self-conscious. Feeling that way was nonsensical anyway after everything we'd just done.

Atem nodded in approval and sauntered over to the red drapes that made this place not even remotely as private as he seemed to think and began securing them back in place.

It gave me the opening I needed to get out the bath without being watched and peel my underwear away from my body. I could manage without my briefs while they dried and there was no way I was wearing them now. Not after going off in them like an unattended fire hose. I laid them out flat in the sun next to the rest of my clothes, rearranged the pile as I grabbed my Duel Disk and turned back to find Atem was now loitering around for me by the exit with an hand on his hip.

He smiled at me as our eyes connected. It was a small, soft manipulation of his features that I hadn't ever seen before. Yet another thing to add to my hologram when I was back in the real world. At this rate it'd take months to get all the updates done.

Without another word or pausing to dry off he started back through the archway that led back into the palace corridors.

I didn't know where he was going, but I didn't care right now. I strode over to him and followed his lead anyway, our hands brushing against each other with every other step as we walked side by side.


	29. Chapter 29

**Atem**

I'd never experienced anything like that before.

My pulse quickened again at the vivid recollection of leaning my body to Kaiba's and bucking against him like a wild horse. Our intimacy had been an honest, guileless and ferocious thing. A dull heat flushed my cheeks and my brow furrowed as I carefully revised the details as though they were the prior turns of a duel against an opponent I hadn't yet decided how best to beat.

Within my family it was a common saying that the men born from our royal bloodline had no need for the potent magics of the lettuce plant and now the joke rang true. Having experienced something so powerful and pleasurable with Kaiba I wanted to do so again - many more times. The legacies of my distant ancestors siring small armies of sons and daughters made sense to me now in a way the idea never had before. I felt as though our near coupling in the water had awakened something within me, or enlightened me to the existence of a new and great mystery of the world.

Exploring that discovery would have to wait for now.

Amusingly, despite our intimacy leaving me feeling refreshed and newly energized our time together in the bath seemed to have had the very opposite effect on Kaiba.

He'd been noticeably sedate in the aftermath. Softly illuminated by the light of the afternoon sun I'd never seen Kaiba look so tame or so docile. With the tension in his shoulders relaxed, the angular plains of his face slackened and his nut-colored hair soaked through and in mild disarray he'd looked several years younger.

No one would suspect that now as he prowled beside me through the corridors, scowling in annoyance every so often as his long fingers had sweep the fringe of his wet hair out of his eyes, only for it to stubbornly return there a moment later. The rebelliousness of it seemed appropriate.

Despite the deeper placidity that I could sense within him his stride was purposeful and his posture straight-backed and as arrogant as ever as he kept pace with me. Though dampened by this invisible blanket of calmness the distress of having his marred skin exposed lingered thickly in the air around him like a dense shadow. He swiftly crossed his arms each time we passed a guard or attendant, the positioning of one arm across the other carefully calibrated to hide most of the marks on his forearms. Without his coat eagerly gusting behind him he looked naked in a way that nothing to do with his bared flesh and dressed in so little the pose looked more self-protective than intimidating.

His muted discomfort left me feeling unsettled.

I planned to remedy it.

Kaiba didn't ask where we were going as we paced the hallways towards the rear most sanctum of my palace that housed the royal domicile. He projected an air of disinterest and only as we neared the twin Hands of the Pharaoh guarding the doorway to my quarters did his face liven from stoicism to reflect a thinly veiled curiosity.

"Nice décor." He quipped as he parted the dark drapery that hung heavily around my room and stepped into it through the gilded doors.

The servants had lit the tall braziers that stood beside my bed and several other candles and lamps. Together they each joined as one to cast a golden light around the large chamber, emboldened by the bright sunlight spilling in from the far balcony.

I suppressed a chuckle as Kaiba's eyes immediately were drawn to the great tapestries of the Egyptian Gods that lined the walls. I doubted he saw the magnificently woven images of Slifer the Sky Dragon, The Winged Dragon of Ra and Obelisk the Tormentor as anything other than ultimately powerful Duel Monsters that should rightly add their might to his deck. If he did view them as the divine beasts that they were, his stubbornness would compel him to keep silent on the subject. He approached the last of the three, marching toward the elaborate linen weaving of Obelisk to critically examine it like a new possession. Even striding across the room in only a schenti and his discordantly futuristic Duel Disk, Kaiba still seemed to emanate a unique blend of arrogance and unruliness. It made him both infuriating and relentlessly fascinating to watch as he appraised the tapestry as if it belonged to him and not me.

The boldness of it made me smirk.

Carved and painted into the wall next to the tapestries was the history of my bloodline, renderings of my ancestors in various states of victory; a scene of my great grandfather hunting hippopotamuses, his father winning battles and chariot races and my own father being visited by the Gods. Kaiba's eyes looked over them next, studiously tracing my family line from my most distant ancestor's carving to my father's, and then mine, before quickly doubling back to my father's again.

"Oof. That's your dad? So you're a genetic anomaly even in your own family." He concluded with a goading smirk. I didn't bother to respond beyond a mild shrug. In my time unusual features were believed to be a sign of a child's heightened magical potential and seen as a blessing.

Not getting the reaction he seeked Kaiba analyzed the wall for only a second more and then cast the barbed net of his attention around the rest of the chamber.

The middle of my room was empty of anything beside my bed. He glanced at it for a second before a flush of color curiously stained his lean cheeks and he angrily snapped his head in the opposite direction to steadfastly ignore it. His sodden hair flung droplets of water across my quarters as he did so. Kaiba glared at me reproachfully as he noticed I'd been watching him so I left him to conclude his inspection unsupervised and passed through the entrance to the robing room to find new vestments.

It would take longer to dress myself without any attendants than it had to disrobe but I had no intention of calling in the proper vassals and inviting onlookers or interruptions. I was familiar enough with the various things the servants usually attended to and was confident I could manage without them. Towels and linens of varying shapes and colors lined the robing room's shelves and I selected a fresh white robe similar to the one I had shed by the pool, but the robe itself had thoughts to the contrary. The material snagged on the right wing of my crown as I pulled it over my head. I thanked the Gods that Kaiba remained ignorant to the display as I twisted my body to be free of it and struggled to disentangle the two by feel alone.

"Ghn." The motion tweaked the cut on my side and I eyed the wound carefully. Re-opening it now while trying to do something as simple as put on my own clothes would be embarrassing, especially knowing the relentless heckling that would follow should Kaiba discover exactly how unused to dressing myself I was. As I pried the fabric back from my body it was a relief to see that he was still otherwise engaged with analyzing my things.

Unwilling to tempt fate a second time I tossed the robe aside for something more manageable.

An elaborate dark purple shendyt with a long triangular tongue was much easier to negotiate around my body. I secured it in place with a black leather belt. Its shape was cut to frame the lower point of the Millennium Puzzle and since arriving in my afterlife it had felt odd to wear the belt without the Item as an accompaniment. Thanks to Kaiba's obstinance reclaiming the Puzzle from Yugi's dimension had become a necessity, so the lack of the Item was no longer an issue.

Despite taking longer than it should have Kaiba paid me no attention as I dressed.

A rare feeling of self-consciousness pricked me as he took his time and moved around my space slowly studying the furniture, paintings, ankhs and tyet knots that imbued the royal room with their protection. He passed the room I was in, glancing at it with little interest as I stepped into clean sandals and fixed a new pauldron into place atop my shoulder. As I fastened a new necklace over my collar bones and replaced the gold band that encircled my waist the sound of his footsteps halted. I emerged freshly garbed to see what had captured his interest as Kaiba paused beside something that by modern standards would have been considered a desk.

The wooden frame was covered with sheets of gold inlaid with colored glass and both its legs and those of the chairs that matched it had feet carved into the shape of roaring lions. It was furniture worthy of seating a Pharaoh but it wasn't the craftsmanship that held Kaiba's gaze. Instead he looked over a board set with the half-finished game of Hounds and Jackals that I'd been playing with Shimon and an inscribed naos sistrum that had belonged to Mother before picking up and unfurling the top most of a small mountain of scrolls.

"No time to play hooky when when you're king, huh?" He commented dryly but his expression was stubbornly unreadable.

The comment cut through the silence of my room. One I had been too distracted to notice was there until it was so abruptly broken.

"You don't strike me the desk job type." Kaiba added, drolly.

There was something very revealing about Kaiba being here, in my room, seeing my things. These weren't Yugi's, or the mementos he'd gathered on my behalf during my stay in the living world. These were uniquely mine – each possession an artifact personal to me. I wondered what Kaiba's opinion was as I swept over the objects in the room and relived the memories of each one.

At my lack of response blue eyes glanced up from the scroll and followed the line of my vision to the bridle of my very first horse as I admired it on the adjacent wall, next to the triangular bow and matching bow box Father had commissioned for my birthday and the elegantly carved ram-headed ritual staff that Mahad had gifted to me for completing the trials associated with becoming a recognized court magician, despite not strictly needing to do so as the son of the Pharaoh. A long and ornate golden dagger took its place in the mount beside them with intricate scripture and a pair of winged snakes traveling the length of its hilt. It had been a gift from Seto, he himself keeping a twin blade for use in rituals. The weapon was far too fine for combat but it made my mind drift back to my duel against his reincarnation back in the forest.

Though clearly not a master like Seto, Kaiba had handled the Sword of Soul with a middling proficiency that suggested some former training, but it was outdated. Lessons from when he was younger, and clearly shorter. His stance had been too wide, as were his sweeps; the arcs overly large and requiring a great amount of his stamina. He'd blocked and parried the damaging blows to his core with efficiency, more relying upon his body's deceptive brute strength to repel them than actual skill, but had left an opportunity to attack at his arms and legs. Given so many openings I'd done quite a bit of damage to him but he'd clearly enjoyed the exchange regardless. Perhaps we could spar again sometime in the future, if there was ever an opportunity to do so.

The duelist beside me shifted slightly, calling my attention back to him in the present.

"No, I'm not." I admitted in delayed amusement, finding the timing of the observation poignant as I finished beholding the tokens of my life as a prince. I hadn't found much time for any of my hobbies after becoming the Pharaoh back when I still lived. In the afterlife there were no neighboring nations to require peacekeeping, no battles or wars to fight, no droughts or famines to plan for. I'd been able to enjoy many of my old pastimes since arriving here, but only because my afterlife lacked the flaws that had made my original reign so challenging.

I could feel the pressure of Kaiba's eyes on my face as he watched me closely for a moment. Without passing further comment he merely rolled the scroll back up and carelessly tossed it onto of the neatly arranged mountain of correspondences stacked up on my desk. They were most likely reports on the various aspects of my kingdom; probably the sort that I wouldn't care to deal with.

"I'll have Seto tell me what they say when he awakens." I added, placing the duty of seeing to the missives as far from my mind as I could. In my peripheral vision I saw Kaiba's eyes narrow at the use of his given name, even though he knew full well it was one he was currently required to share.

"Why not just read them yourself?" Kaiba demanded, suddenly almost seeming offended. It was as if I'd just declared an intent to waste his time and not my High Priest's.

I enjoyed the surly sight and concluded that "There are more pressing matters to attend to at the moment". Yugi. Mahad. Seto. Even Kaiba himself. Each of them was far more important than whatever paperwork was waiting for me. "Besides, I don't care much for reading."

Kaiba stared at me steadily, apparently waiting for the punchline to a joke.

I shrugged at him casually. At my less than committal gesture his leer transformed into the sort of wary expression my High Priest reserved for deranged criminals or raving lunatics.

"You don't 'care much for reading'" He repeated incredulously, as though I'd just shared with him the sordid details of a royal scandal.

To Kaiba it was likely an odd concept to reconcile with.

In the modern world it was a necessity to read often and copiously. I'd found it much easier to do so while in Yugi's body, but here in my own the characters had a tendency to blur and sway on the papyrus the longer I stared at them. Seto also had a habit of encoding any missives he though were sensitive or especially important with a personal cipher that he often changed without warning. Mahad suspected Seto did it just to vex him. Whatever the reason I'd discovered long ago it was quicker to have my High Priest read the scriptures to me than gamble and squint at them myself in the candlelight until the hieroglyphs stayed still, only to discover the message unintelligible.

The lull of Kaiba's disbelief gave me the opportunity to throw the towel I was holding to him and with my hands free I began to navigate the inner compartments of the gilded chest beside my desk that contained Father's coat. Much like Kaiba my Father had harbored a fondness for them, though the cut of his were looser and befitting Egypt's climate. Most had been entombed with him but one remained. It'd gone long forgotten at the bottom of a trunk in the Pharaoh's chambers and having ascended to the throne those very chambers had since become my own.

In the periphery of my vision Kaiba turned away from me to begin toweling himself dry with a single-minded determination that was amusing to watch. He attacked his own body with the cloth, the raw focus in his eyes seeming almost comical as he applied himself so seriously to a task that was so mundane. I had to look away from him to pull the item free as my fingertips touched the familiar texture of the parcel I was seeking at the bottom of the chest. Having never before been worn it was still carefully wrapped up in rough linen canvas just as Father had received it. Kaiba reflexively caught the garment as I pulled the package free and threw it at him, deftly snatching it out of the air as he tossed his towel aside onto my bed.

"What's this?" He glared at me suspiciously for good measure before snapping the twine that bound the canvas together and unfolding it.

The gold thread and beadwork sewn into the bottom wasn't to his liking, or so I assumed from his childishly sour expression as he ran his fingers over the stiff stitching, but I wagered any coat was better than none at all. That assumption was promptly proven correct.

"You might want to start reading things again, Pharaoh." Kaiba smirked as he held the garment out in front of him to judge the fit before shrugging it across his back, "Because it looks like you ordered the wrong size." He quipped, already looking ten times more comfortable as he pulled his arms through the fine material.

I shook my head at the playful jab, feeling my earrings bounce against my jaw as I did so.

"It belonged to my Father, but he never wore it." I reflected. Father hadn't liked red clothing and had many other more preferable vestments of a similar cut so it had gone completely unused. Kaiba paid me little mind as he patted the fabric down to smooth it against the muscular lines of his body. He was a little taller than Father had been. The hem of the coat only stretched down to his calves and not his ankles but the missing length hardly mattered and it hid the scars on his forearm, neck and shoulder well enough. "He didn't like the color." I summarized.

Red had certain connotations, symbolizing life but also destruction and evil. Father had viewed it to be an unlucky color, especially for a Pharaoh, one that was best worn in small doses or not at all. It represented anger, chaos and was closely bound in association to Set, our tempestuous God of storms and the divine progenitor of my High Priest's name. A name that Kaiba had had fittingly inherited despite being born thousands of years and many countries removed from my people and our Gods.

Destiny was truly a powerful force.

"Tch. Me and him both." Kaiba sneered nastily, interrupting my musings as his mood abruptly shifted as unpredictably as the wind.

His lips slightly turned downwards and pulled against each other tightly as his lower jaw subtly clenched.

I'd seen him do this several times now while in my afterlife. Possibly it was something he'd done with some frequency back in Domino as well and I'd been too distant from him to notice. I felt my eyebrow's quirk upward in interest as I contemplated the strange habit. It seemed to happen largely at random but I doubted that was truly the case. Usually the expression was followed up with a sudden outburst of anger that had no obvious source or purpose.

Just as I expected his cool blue eyes chilled with an icy ire and he scowled viciously at the loose-fitting sleeves of the appropriated coat, eyeing the baggy fabric with venom as it slightly lagged behind the movement of his arms and in those moments revealed the burns on his upper wrists.

I contemplated the dilemma of successfully navigating this new development as he carefully pulled the material to lie flat on his arm over his Duel Disk, covering the marks from view once more.

"Seto's cuffs would hide those." I noted. The gold bands would be ideal for the task.

Kaiba's eyes quickly flashed up to mine. "Pass." He scoffed heatedly.

I frowned at him and his testy reply but refused to feed his temper with a similarly harsh tone, though a question of 'why?' was implied in the sharp look I aimed his way.

"Gold isn't my color." Kaiba crossed his arms and scanned over my possessions once more before glaring back at me with a steely expression. "Besides, if you came back to Domino would you really wanna wear all of Yugi's stuff?" His features shifted into a condescending amusement. "Though I'm gonna guess the leather and buckles weren't exactly his idea to begin with."

"You're hardly one to talk in that regard." I parried plainly, fixing him with an unimpressed stare before relenting with an admission of "Yet I see your point."

Yugi had been kind to me. More generous a host than I could have ever hoped for. Each time he'd discovered something I enjoyed he'd made an effort to incorporate it into his life. Whenever he'd had the opportunity falafels, onion rings and mozzarella sticks had become frequent side orders and many of the things he'd worn during our duels had been for my comfort instead of his own. His thoughtfulness was without bounds. Even so, I had to concede that Yugi's school uniform wasn't something I'd wear again if given the choice.

By that same logic I could understand Kaiba's refusal to borrow from Seto's wardrobe, especially as the two didn't appear likely to ever get along.

"Though wearing your father's stuff is off-putting in a different way." Kaiba added, his harsh tone lessened by distraction as he finished adjusting the coat to his liking

My eyes trailed over Kaiba's body.

"I think it suits you." I complimented with finality, goading Kaiba with a pleased smirk. It was a risky move given his shifting mood but I was learning to enjoy the challenge that came with strategizing how to best conquer his temperamentality.

It was also very true.

Despite the undesirable and ironically appropriate color the coat fit him well. It accentuated the width and strength of his well toned torso as it narrowed into his trim angular waist and flared out behind him as though the long dormant garment had been brought back to life by Kaiba's innate energy. Even in the face of his obvious irritation I couldn't help but smile to myself as I beheld him returned to form. The sight filled my chest with a feeling of fondness.

Kaiba paused at my compliment, rendered still by my words as he judged my expression warily. His eyes narrowed to snake-like slits before he answered with soft grunt of "Hnh. Don't get used to it." though his tone lacked the bitterness it otherwise could have held. "Once my clothes are dry you'll never catch me in any of this ever again." He parried, in somewhat playful mockery.

He may be waiting for them longer than he thought.

I suspected that after we'd left the bath all of the discarded clothes had been collected up by my servants to be properly washed. Frankly, Kaiba's needed it.

"I'll enjoy it while it lasts." I countered, choosing to keep that insight to myself as I stepped into his personal space and threaded my fingers through his. Kaiba's fingers tensely twitched before ardently interlocking with my own. He responded to me by leaning down as I stretched upwards to meet his lips in a kiss that was quick and harsh, just shy of being nip. Every one of these exchanges felt new and different, like the final turn of a victorious duel. It invigorated me and I pulled us together, the renewed keenness of my body meeting only softness as I pushed my hips towards Kaiba's own.

"What, your people haven't invented the refractory period yet?" He muttered against my mouth.

I raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar term.

"It's the time it takes for-" Kaiba began and then blushed hotly, looking equal parts awkward and irritated as he cut off his sentence half way and instead finished with a growl of "Forget it."

Chuckling at him earned me a half-hearted scowl. I gathered his meaning from context alone. Though I was eager to experience more of him, to meet him again on this new and gratifying battlefield, Kaiba apparently needed more time to recover from our previous encounter.

He looked away sharply, fighting to hide a look of embarrassment if his warring features were any indication and snorted tiredly as the damp weight of his own bangs fell back into his eyes again at the abrupt movement. The sight made me grin and in turn my grin made Kaiba step away with a reprimanding glower and snare the towel he'd left behind on my bed to resume his previous task.

"Laugh it up, Pharaoh." He jeered blandly, roughly applying the towel to his head to massage his bangs dry. "Unlike you and Yugi, most people's hair doesn't act like memory foam." Made wild by the treatment and now peppered with flyaways Kaiba's thick shock of hair had a striking resemblance to Joey's as he pulled the towel back to sightlessly paw and claw his fingers through it.

"So I see." I countered, watching the display in amusement while Kaiba did battle with it again. He continued for some time before pausing to try and tease and finesse his hairstyle into it's usual appearance. "We are in Egypt, Kaiba. It'll dry on it's own." I noted even as the familiarity of the sight made me feel warm in a way that had nothing to do with the hot temperature.

He ignored that completely which would have irritated me had the reaction not been made predictable by knowing my High Priest. As he'd risen through the ranks of the priesthood Seto had also become very particular about his hair. He would all but snarl at anyone who wetted or otherwise disfigured it. The headdresses he wore were a vaunted mark of his station as High Priest but also a clever way to protect his scalp from lice without needing to shave his head. Perhaps it was a family trait as I too joined him in the refusal to part with my hair. Wigs itched and there was something about them I found uncanny. I'd disliked them for as long as I could remember, refusing to wear one in the place of my real hair even as a child. Mother had found the rebellion enchanting and allowed me to have my way, much to Father's chagrin.

"The back loses its shape if it isn't dried right." Kaiba muttered as he began viciously swiping at his hair once more, hooking some of the thick strands over his ears and pulling others towards the back of his head.

With the towel in hand he stood still in the middle of my chamber, twisting his head from one end of my room to the other as if searching for something. I wasn't sure what.

"If you're looking for a hair dryer then you're a few thousand years too early." I goaded, watching with satisfaction as the comment made him turn back to me, scowling unimpressed.

"No mirrors either." He concluded sourly.

"Only hand mirrors." I confirmed with a nod of my head. Kaiba's answering eyeroll suggested that wouldn't be sufficient for his purposes. "Your cosmetological needs will have to go wanting."

"Great." He deadpanned, lifting the towel to his skull and trying to both flatten and dry the cinnamon tresses as he pressed the cloth down the back of his neck in long strokes. "Looking like a punk it is then." The thick stands were smoothed down with each reapplication of the towel to his head but the end effect was nowhere near the extreme tidiness of his hair's usual style.

With a casual roll of my shoulders I blinked at him slowly before volunteering myself for the task, if only to see his reaction. "You could let me try."

He didn't outwardly respond to my offer at all for a moment. Then, he snidely grunted "Got a ladder?"

I stepped across the great square-cut stone slabs that made up the chamber's floor, remarking "Your diligence to being as obtuse as possible at all times is impressive" as I took a seat on my bed. I pushed aside the pillow so I could lean back against the headboard and smirked at him in challenge. Kaiba only stared skeptically as I waved him over to sit in front of me where I would have full access to his back.

"Hnnnnh." Kaiba grumbled, eyeing the sweeping awnings that traveled the length of the wooden beams above the bed to frame it on all sides with a paranoia that would have been vaguely insulting had it not been so absurd. I could see the scales in his eyes, weighing tempering his pride now to join me on the bed against navigating the rest of the duel with a less than perfect appearance.

"Whatever." He decided.

After a lengthy internal debate he joined me, crossing his legs to sit tense in front of me on the bed.

"It should look-"

"-I know how it's supposed to look." I interrupted factually.

At that Kaiba handed over the towel with reluctance, as if by doing so he was consenting to be strangled with it.

With gritted teeth he stayed rigid and still as I applied the towel to the top of his head and worked downwards towards the nape of his neck, trying to copy what he'd been struggling to do by feel alone. I didn't permit my eyes to linger on the burns at the back of his neck. Instead I focused on the soft silken texture of his hair and the way the it shined slightly copper in the afternoon light. It had been cut to lead neatly down into a point on his spine, ending just before the juncture at which his neck met his shoulders. I followed that line downward with mixed results, dodging the circular scars there as I did so.

As a boy I'd often laid by Mother's side when she was feeling to weak to rise from her bed and relaxed into the familiar strokes as she petted my hair. It had been calming and soothing. Though lessened by his tension a similar effect wasn't lost on Kaiba. Just as he began to ease against me and his back melt into my chest my fingernails caught on the scalp behind his ear. The brief contact made him jump, before turning back to snap "Don't do that" over his shoulder at me with an intriguing blush of pink coloring staining his face.

"Aha." I agreed, slowly blinking at him until he turned back around even while I committed the reaction to my memory.

After several long minutes of drying his hair as I would have my own the dampness abated and in boredom the stiffness of Kaiba's body faded. His head and neck became pliant in my grasp as he leaned against me fully. My attempt, though earnest, wasn't yielding the result I'd expected. As I rubbed and pinched the copper strands dry with the towel I left behind upturned tufts like those of an animal's whose fur had been stroked in the wrong direction. I hummed, finding it typical that even Kaiba's hair was defiant to my wishes. A final stroke that pressed too hard against the back of his head in an effort to tame the rogue ruffles drew Kaiba's suspicion.

Leaning forward he batted my hand away, feeling at the cowlicks on the back of his head with his hand.

"Nailed it." He sarcastically drawled, before belated adding "You're not good at this." with a pleased smirk.

I frowned. "Yes, I can see that." The vassals who attended me as I washed and dried always made this look so easy.

My admission seemed to fill him with a wicked delight. He looked impossibly contented with my ineptitude as he settled back against me, as if inviting me to continue failing for his own petty amusement. I was surprised that in the minutes that followed that he didn't respond with another witty remark. The lack of one was suspicious. I supposed I should be grateful for the interlude, though I suspected Kaiba's newly acquired patience came from the dark joy of knowing I was failing in this task rather than a sincere appreciation of my efforts.

I glanced to his face, ready to counter whatever barb he was waiting to throw at me next but found the reason for his silence much easier to deal with.

His eyes were closed.

"Are you asleep?" I murmured.

"Yes. Thanks for asking." He softly snarked.

I fixed him with a smile that he couldn't see while seated in front of me and lowered the towel to lie on the bed.

With my fingers I tried teasing the peaks I'd left behind in his hair down with my fingers. They were as difficult to persuade as Kaiba himself, but responded slightly better to this treatment. With one smoothed flat I repeated this elsewhere, gradually making my way back down the length of his neck and toward the burns at the base. The sight stilled my ministrations as my fingers neared one to the right of his spinal column that his shirts and high necklines had likely always covered.

He'd been unflinching in revealing the scars to me before our bath; his face determined, furious and courageous in a turbulent mix that Kaiba blended together with ease. Out of respect I hadn't permit myself to dwell on the marks. Kaiba had been upset enough without me saying anything more on the topic.

Abruptly Kaiba stiffened against me, interrupting my thoughts.

"Stop looking at them." He sneered, his relaxed posture and angry tone fusing together into a low growl. "I don't want your pity."

"I don't feel any pity." I frowned pensively. Warriors fighting at war rarely came back from battle unscathed. Scars like these were the cost of victory. I knew this as well as he did. "I just regret that you have them." I concluded sincerely.

"Save it." Came the mildly derisive reply, his voice growing subtly softer the longer his eyes stayed closed. "It's not like they're your fault."

He sounded certain, but I wasn't sure about that.

If it was Seto's wish to aid me that had led to his reincarnation then Kaiba's destiny was one designed ultimately to help me reach this afterlife. The implications were troublesome. By that reasoning fate had placed him into the hands of Gozaburo Kaiba intentionally, ultimately for my benefit; to mold him into the ruthless duelist I called my rival.

If that was true then I would be throwing everything Kaiba had endured back in his face if I ever considered leaving this place.

After a pause he spoke again, unwittingly filling the air with dismissive words that should have been a comforting assurance but weren't. "What's in the past doesn't matter anymore." He muttered.

By his own uncompromising logic that was true. It wasn't Kaiba's habit to dwell on such things. That was likely for the best. It made me wonder something though. When I was in Kaiba's past would I no longer matter either?

I'd wanted that just yesterday; for him to discard me and move on. For him to live his life.

Now I wasn't so certain. This young affectionate thing we were building meant something to me. I wanted to preserve the memory of each kiss and quarrel and verbal joust - to bottle them all up in a canopic jar - so they would stay preserved. I wanted it to mean the same to him; for us to be equally matched in this. It was a selfish mortal desire, but as Pharaoh I was only half-divine and if Kaiba had his say doubtless not even that.

"You discard your past so carelessly." I began slowly, choosing my words carefully. "After you've return to Domino will you dismiss me too?" Would I be cast aside to summon his new future, like sacrificing away a Duel Monster from the playing field?

I jumped as Kaiba barked out a harsh laugh that took me by surprise. It was almost a scoff, but one of genuine amusement.

"If things had gone differently, sure." He drawled, setting my pulse racing as I waited for him to continue with something it took me a moment to recognize as nervousness. "If I'd just straight up won our duel I'd already be back home by now, putting you in the rear view mirror." There was no doubt in his tone or hesitation in his words – they were quick and unflinchingly. "Even if I'd lost it would at least have been a conclusion to our battle that I was prepared to face."

_"Atem." He had never used my name before. Hearing it from his lips the short syllables seemed heavier than I'd ever known them to sound before. They were weighted down with an intense need for something that only Kaiba could communicate so deftly with so few words. "I need this done." He told me simply._

"Like I could now, though." He smirked. "More like I'll get back and wonder if any of it even happened."

"What?" What was he saying?

His shoulders shrugged against my chest, the right hitching slightly higher than the left.

"I'll tell Mokuba about it, leaving out all the kissing bits, and it'll feel real for a few months. Then that'll start to go away." He explained, sounding indifferent to his own prediction. "So I'll start wondering if the Dual Dimension system crapped out and I lost consciousness re-entering the atmosphere, and this was all a stupid dream." Tilting his head to meet my eyes he leaned back further against my chest and his blunt piercing conclusion stilled my blood. "You won't get to become the past, Pharaoh. You'll become another thing permanently looping inside my head before that can happen." He taunted, as though he thought he was scoring a point.

That was close to the answer that I'd wanted, but I felt no pleasure hearing it. Almost the opposite.

Kaiba. You fool.

"Sit up." I commanded. His victorious smirk dulled instantly as I ordered him to move and all of his relaxation slipped away as he pulled his body forward to disconnect it from mine.

"What?" He demanded warily, abruptly agitated as I willed myself free of the bed and walked back to my desk, finding a clean sheet of papyrus and reed pen there.

"It's nothing. Don't worry." I replied simply, squinting to focus on the paper. The order was short and to the point. I heard Kaiba make a sharp "Tch." noise as I waved the finished message in the air to dry the ink and I turned back to find him watching me closely through gloomy narrowed eyes like a small boy thinking he was about to be scolded. "I'm not angry with you." I assured him, feeling my eyebrows raise in surprise at both the clear assumption and his reaction. Kaiba silently glowered at me, apparently less than convinced. "I just need to send this message." I added, rolling the missive up and tying it with a papyrus string.

"Great time to do your paperwork." He sneered sardonically, the fresh tension that had gripped his shoulders leeching out slightly as I opened the door to my chamber and handed off the scroll to one of the Hands of the Pharaoh standing poised outside. "Take this to Shimon." I bid the guard. "He has my permission to withdraw from the royal vault and follow these instructions."

With a dutiful bow the Hand turned away to do my bidding and I closed the chamber door once more.

Kaiba stared at me like a cautious cat unsure if it was about to ejected from a warm room as I rejoined him on the bed, nesting behind him once more to assume our previous position. He didn't ask me what it was I'd just done even as he stiffly leaned back against me for the second time. I couldn't tell if that was due to defiance, fatigue, or a polymerization of both. Gently I returned my hands to his head to pet his hair again, hoping to soothe the stress my hasty decision had created from his body.

"So now you're just gonna boss around the knockoff of Yugi's fossil of a grandfather since 'Seto' isn't around?" He quipped, gradually easing back against me as he hissed his own name snake-like. The question was snide and sarcastic, so likely genuine.

"You know as well as I do that Solomon Muto is a skilled duelist. Just as Shimon makes for a brilliant Grand Vizier." I parried. Kaiba might not respect much, but he appreciated the talent of those he deemed to be expert duelists at the very least. I suspected that list wasn't a long one but Yugi's grandpa should have earned a place on it many times by now. "And 'Seto' is his name too." I added, addressing the other more petulant part of the prickly comment as I eyed the Seto lying against me, making sure to keep my tone and body language relaxed and neutral.

"He can keep it." Kaiba commented, his tone growing a little soft and distant as his eyelids lowered steadily. I was glad he was resuming our embrace so easily as he relaxed against me again. "I'm better off being 'Kaiba'."

"You wield it as a title." I noted. Across Domino 'Kaiba' was a brand that penetrated every household. Kaiba had claimed his status to be comparable to Pharaohdom in my throne room. I supposed in the modern world it really was.

"It is one. In Domino at least." Kaiba grunted back. "My KaibaCorp surveillance system gives me eyes on the whole city. The Domino police have been funded by KaibaCorp for the last ten years and the media is strangled from reporting on me under Domino provincial law since I'm technically still a minor. I'm untouchable." He elaborated, yawning as he did so in either tiredness or boredom. "Next October will be a trainwreck though."

"Why? What happens in October?" I questioned. Nothing that had once been in Yugi's calendar sprang to mind.

"My birthday's in October." Was the short, factual reply.

"Aha." I replied awkwardly. That felt like something I should have already known.

"Don't worry about it. I don't know when yours is either." He muttered, eyes almost closed.

I frowned, realizing that I wasn't sure either where my birthday fell in his modern day calendar. My High Priest was born in the flooding season - I recalled it because his birthday was very close to Mahad's. If Seto and Kaiba shared a birthday and the later half of Akhet corresponded to October then I could walk back our respective seasons back to find the approximate month for the later half of Shemu.

"It's in early June." I calculated.

"Hnh. Makes sense. Yugi's is the forth." He murmured.

Kaiba was right, it was now that he mentioned it. Why did Kaiba remember that? I frowned, finding it strange and curious in equal measure.

He answered me before I could ask with a lazy grunt of "Numbers are easy."

This made me hesitate. Kaiba had just given me several personal facts about himself in as many minutes and each one was a surprise.

Did I truly know him so little?

"Stupid things like that just don't matter between duelists like us." He added sleepily. I didn't know if he had noticed my contrition and was trying to soothe it or was simply speaking his own thoughts aloud.

"Perhaps not." But despite my response I wasn't sure about that. I wanted to know Kaiba better, I realized. Even now, after all these years there was so much about him still to discover. The thought chafed. Our time together and my only opportunity in which to learn more was so short. It was already slipping through my fingers like fine sand.

A long pause passed by without a reply and I confirmed with a glance that Kaiba had fallen asleep in the lull. His head was bowed to rest on his chest and his dark brown eyelashes cast a fan of shadows over the deep shading under this eyes that looked like smudged kohl. His fingers twitched, he jerked and his eyes squeezed tightly closed every once in a while before relaxing back into their previous position but even with those flaws he looked peaceful.

There was no doubt that the servants had prepared separate quarters for him, but now that he'd fallen asleep so easily against me whatever chambers had been arranged for him were removed from play. I willed myself to rest just for a moment and then leave Kaiba here to join the hunt for Andro Sphinx, but the longer I sat watching the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest the harder attempting to marshal my thoughts to that task became.

Leaning back against the headboard of my bed I too slowly closed my eyes.

* * *

**AN** : Despite pulling from the English dub version of the characters, I'm using the ages of the Japanese versions because the English dub does some rather weird rewrites on how long the series takes canonically and how old some of the cast are.

The logic I'm working with is that according to their Japanese bios Yugi and his classmates (including Kaiba) are supposed to be 16 when the series starts and are probably 18 or turning 18 that year by the time their class is shown to graduate in the DSoD movie – this likely also happens in mid to late March based on a normal Japanese high school graduation schedule.


	30. Chapter 30

**Yugi**

"Here goes nothing." I called back to Yami.

He nodded back with a determination that was contagious. "Right." I felt it fill me with courage as I squared my shoulders and turned back to the ancient gilded door.

I didn't like deliberately breaking things or big shows of force so for a second I just frowned down at the seal. There was no way I wanted to touch it while so much of Anubis's gross mud was dripping over the edges so that left only one option. Barging down doors was more of Joey and Tristan's thing. Those guys could get themselves into all sorts of trouble like that. I channelled all of their strength and took a deep breath of sour air. With a wet 'slorp' some of the ooze retreated back behind the door as I drew my leg back and kicked upward, striking at the clay seal square on with my foot just like they would've done.

"Bmmmm!"

It worked. I hit it hard! The force even made the massive door behind shudder a little in place. I had to hop on the spot a bit to get my balance back and dodge a few globs of ooze as it sprayed backwards towards me, but as soon as I was steady again I took another look at the seal to inspect the damage.

My high kick had left behind a fracture in the clay, one that gradually started to open as the seal cracked more and more, like ice breaking. With a hollow thud the damaged pieces of the seal crumbled away from the end of the elaborate knot they'd been binding and fell to the floor. I jumped back in surprise as they splattered into the pool of slime at my feet and were quickly consumed by the goo until I couldn't see anything else except the inky ooze staining the walkway.

"Okay." I noted to myself, patting my heart as it began hammering in my chest. "That's the seal down."

I held still and waited.

I'd been expecting something terrible to happen; like a tsunami of sludge or an angry Blue-Eyes to burst through the door and chase me down the hallway, but there was nothing. Only silence and the sound of my own breathing. The fact that I seemed to have gotten away with breaking the seal open so easily didn't make me feel better. It only made me more certain that something scary was about to happen, but there was no point standing here waiting to become dragon-chow.

Okay. It was time to undo the rope. "Now it's just time for the kno- ahh!".

"Yugi!" Yami shouted from a way behind me as I jumped backwards and fell flat on my butt.

"I'm okay!" I assured him as I scuttled backward like a crab to dodge a big black puddle right by my hand. It blistered and bubbled, squishing towards me across the floor until it got close enough for Mokuba's Blue-Eyes card to repel. I rubbed the back of my head as I glanced back up at the knot, slightly embarrassed to have overreacted so badly to something relatively harmless.

Feeding back on itself the rope had reacted as I'd reached for it, twisting in the air like a goo-covered snake and unraveling the knot at its end so it could flail as if it was alive. "It's just...the rope started magically untying itself." I explained, glancing back to Yami over my shoulder as he hung in the doorway to Kaiba's lab looking like he was two seconds away from charging over to me, holographic projectors or not. It pull itself free of the door handles and sped up as it uncoiled and flicked around, sending droplets of gunk in every direction as it undid all of the elaborate hitches that had been keeping it tied up and binding the door closed. With a final whip-like lunge the rope undid itself completely, bursting into a shower of golden magical spray and then disappearing into nothing. "I guess it spooked me a bit." I assured him with a nervous smile.

"Creeeeeeeeeeeee." The double doors parted down the middle, opening up on their own with a long creepy creaking noise. A tongue of dry, musty air that smelt like dust and old furniture mixed in with Anubis's rotten magic blasted me in the face as I sat on the ground, watching the door slowly open itself.

"Be careful, Yugi."

"Yeah." I nodded, wincing at the sour smell but distracted by the solid wall of churning sludge I could see through the doorway. "I will be." I swallowed down a lump of dread as the gross fleshy barrier dripped and writhed, staring through the parted doors into the abyss of blackness. There wasn't anything I could see or hear to clue me in on what was waiting for me on the other side of the slime. It could have been anything. The darkness was ominous and I couldn't take my eyes off it even as I stood back up. It felt like if I did, the sludge was going to shoot out and yank me through the door – Blue-Eyes or not.

"You don't have to go in there. We can find another way to fix this place." Yami cautioned. His tone sounded serious. I didn't look at back him, even as I shook my head.

"I think I do." I answered. I could hardly walk away now; not after I'd broken the protective seal on... whatever it was that was in there. A new wave of ooze thicker than ever before was spilling through the gap into the space station hallway now that the ancient door had been partially opened, filling up the floor and climbing the walls. I had to finish this now that I'd started it. "For Kaiba's sake."

Yami didn't reply as I teased open the doors until the narrow opening was wide enough for me to fit through.

Turning back to him I put on my most reassuring smile. It was soft and not anywhere near as confident as the Pharaoh's when he was dueling, but it was mine. "I'll be quick, okay?"

Yami hesitated and frowned before eventually blinking. "Alright. Good luck." He paused before adding "I'll be here" in a mildly frustrated, powerless tone that I could understand. If things went wrong in there, or I really did get attacked by a dragon, then there was nothing he'd be able to do to help me.

Knowing that made everything seem so much more dangerous. I'd gone without any of the Pharaoh's help for the last half a year and those six months had been quiet, but this was just like when I was prepping for my valedictorian speech. Yami was a confident speaker and I'd missed not getting his feedback or suggestions, but I knew I'd managed it on my own. I'd overcome my fear of public speaking and given it my all. I would have loved to have had his help... but I didn't need it anymore. I could do things without him, I just had to try my best.

"Here I go!" I announced, planting one foot in front of the other.

Blue-Eyes heated in my pocket and began to shine as the toes of my shoes disappeared into the void with my first step through the door, but I could still feel them, so that was a good sign. I marched the rest of my body through the threshold, feeling the protective warmth of Mokuba's card surround me even as I held my breath in anticipation of anything and everything that could be thrown at me on the other side as I did so.

For a second everything turned black and then with a bright white flash I could see again as I crossed over into somewhere else, feeling the temperature and humidity of the air skyrocket as I emerged on the other side of the sludge curtain.

"...Wow." The ooze was so much worse on this side but it hardly mattered, the sight was still... incredible. It was as if I'd stepped through a TV screen straight into a documentary on the Valley of the Kings. Every nook and corner dripped with muck but no matter how much it covered it was obvious that the whole corridor was a work of art. Thick black tendrils of Anubis's magic had hardened into a forest of slick weeds that climbed a procession of huge pillars lining the new hallway, inscribed from top to bottom in hieroglyphs. Though they were partially obscured by goo bright paintings of Egyptian figures covered the walls and even the ceiling like in the ancient tombs of Egypt's most famous Pharaohs. Almost all of them had Atem's High Priest in them. The ones I could still see through the ooze were scenes of him winning wars and meeting gods, some looked more diplomatic with him simply seated on a throne with servants surrounding him and others were naval battles and huge parties. Every door that lined the new hallway was as elaborate and richly decorated as the one I'd passed through to get here, made of gilded wood and stone. All of the doors were either open or ajar, filling the corridor with weird smells and sounds as wet tentacles slithered in and out of them like the root network of a massive tree. From one closest to me wafted the salty tang of sweat and the sound of weapons clashing against each other. Looking in I could see it was a memory of Atem's High priest training in a courtyard. The next door along wasn't as wide open, but I could hear the soft pattering of footsteps and a soft humming noise coming from the other side. It was a muffled arrhythmic muttering, like people talking.

"I hear the final preparations for your tomb have been completed." I faintly heard a woman comment.

There was a scoff from a man and a mutter of "Not a day too soon." That I could only just make out. "Now what's the meaning of this? Whatever you have to show me had best be important."

"It is."

The mumbling grew louder as I crept over to the door, picking my way through a massive pool of gunge as it parted around my feet.

The voices sounded familiar.

"This is what the Necklace has shown you?" The first one demanded.

Hearing Kaiba's voice made sense, given whose Soul Room I was in. The hoarse tone he used was clipped and businesslike. It had an edge but it wasn't as harsh as Kaiba's usually was. It was the voice of a busy man who had more things to do in the day than he did hours to do them in, like my dad's in the mornings before he had to catch an international flight.

"Yes." Replied the woman's voice serenely. I recognized it too. It was Ishizu's, but softer. Almost as if she was tired. "The masons have recreated my visions exactly as I have seen them, my Pharaoh."

Wait. 'Pharaoh'?

I leaned my head right up against the door, putting my ear to the wood. The bottom of my stomach lurched like I'd gone over the peak of a roller coaster as the door swung open and I almost fell straight through the doorway.

"Ah!"

The two figures standing by the far wall didn't react to my near entrance.

Both were illuminated by only firelight as braziers crackled around the outskirts of a large stone chamber. They cast a harsh orange tone that slipped into the grooves between the bricks and dipped into the details of a huge carving spanning the wall in front of the room's occupants. I was glad this wasn't a memory that I was visible in like the first one with the little Kaiba as I leaned in through the threshold for a closer look. He seemed pretty unique from that point of view.

Atem's priestess and High priest stood stiller than statues as specs of dust and motes of ash from the braziers fluttered through the air around them.

There were a few streaks of grey in Isis's hair and even though it was dark I could make out shallow crows feet in the corners of her eyes. The High Priest was clearly older too. A long pointed beard I could never imagine Kaiba growing out framed his chin, which had only become thinner with age as his cheeks had grown hollower. It wasn't the only new addition either. Around his neck was a familiar shape I'd recognize anywhere that looked really out of place on Kaiba's body; the Millennium Puzzle.

Standing side by side the priests were pensively staring up at the wall of hieroglyphs and Duel Monsters carvings that towered above their heads. I recognized it instantly as the stone tablet from the museum as it loomed over them, whole and undamaged. It looked brand new so it must have just been carved. There was a coat of color painted onto it that had clearly faded away in our own time and not a crack or fracture in sight.

"It is a collection of visions I have had many times in fragments over the years, beginning since long before you became Pharaoh." Isis's deep blue eyes lingered on the carvings of Atem and the Dark Magician sadly. That explained why the Puzzle was around the High Priest's neck. He was the Pharaoh now. "But never have they been so clear or complete as in these last few weeks." She noted, casting her hand towards the massive wall of carvings I could barely see in the flickering darkness.

I wondered if Atem had any awareness from inside the Puzzle. Had he silently watched his friends age through his High Priest's eyes like a window, or had he been unaware of it all? Thinking of being in that position, getting left behind and seeing Joey, T _é_ a, Tristan, Duke and Bakura all grow up without being there with them, it made me shiver. I couldn't decide which option was worse - watching or not watching.

Isis traced the outline of the Magician's carving reverently with her thumb. The motion was slow and loving even though her expression was sombre.

The High Priest, uh, Pharaoh didn't interrupt. He tapped a finger against his arms impatiently but waited until she'd finished before asking his question. "And what is this all supposed to mean?" He demanded in a very Kaiba-like way, turning his head away from the tablet dismissively.

Isis looked over the stone as she ran her fingers over the eye of the Millennium Necklace around her throat. "That the previous Pharaoh shall fulfill his destiny."

The Pharaoh threw Isis a mean look for her answer. I guessed that was his way of telling her to be more specific. After scowling at her tersely he turned his head back, studying the carving of the giant reeds that flanked figure of Atem on all sides. "You're certain that he will claim his place in the afterlife?" For just a second his hand moved to his chest to hold the Millennium Puzzle, but he quickly let it go.

"Yes." The older Isis inclined her head in confirmation.

"That is pleasing to hear." He noted. His voice didn't sound happy but there was something in the way his eyes shifted, warmed and looked almost relieved for a second that made the sentiment real.

"Until his place there is challenged." Isis added neutrally, "That is the tale of this sacred stone."

The Pharaoh's eyes narrowed and trailed over it again, carefully taking in all of the details before they stopped and glared at the image of Kaiba in irritation. "The stone masons have outdone themselves rendering me in such an outlandish garb."

"It is as I instructed them to, for that is exactly as the Millennium Necklace has shown it to me." Isis easily parried. "He is a descendant of yours, or something similar."

The Pharaoh scoffed bitterly. "A Pharaoh can have no descendants without heirs." His expression only became darker at that.

The comment made Isis pause and hesitate, her hand hovering in the air before turning back to the Pharaoh. "There is yet still time for you to take a queen." She noted lightly.

"It has never been a question of mere time." The Pharaoh replied bluntly. His jaw locked up and a muscle jumped in his cheek as his eyes were pulled to the carving of Blue-Eyes with a look that was bleak and melancholy. He ignored Isis's expression as her features down-turned in a wistful understanding.

After a mournful silence she spoke again. "Whatever he _is_ matters little, for it is what he _does_ that is of greater concern."

The sorrowful lines of the Pharaoh's face settled into an unimpressed sneer. "Speak plainly."

"Very well." Isis replied, slowly taking stock of the various carvings. "He speaks an unknown spell of great power and from it is born a Shadow Game. It is to be played in the Field of Reeds with Osiris himself acting as arbiter." The Pharaoh's eyes widened at shock. He stared at her in open disbelief. "The loser shall remain bound there, fated never to be reborn or step a foot into the living realm again. The winner is to leave the land of the dead and return to life."

"What!"

Isis raised her hand up again to the writing on the tablet, gesturing at it. "As it was in my vision I have transcribed the incantation here."

The Pharaoh inspected the tablet cautiously, leaning back a bit from his hips to get a good look at it from top to bottom. He didn't give anything away even as he turned back to Isis after reading the inscription. "Such a dangerous sorcery is ripe for abuse, and you commit it to stone?" His eyes narrowed even more and his tone changed into one that was accusing. "How can you be so foolish?"

So Isis had foreseen Kaiba use the spell and recorded it from her vision; making sure the tablet was around in our time for Kaiba to use. They'd made a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they didn't even realize it.

Isis's reply was calm and matter-of-fact. "I wish to learn its secrets."

"Why?" The Pharaoh spat. "A spell such as this is near blasphemy! It is not a spellcraft to study, nor toy with."

Isis didn't seem to be bothered by the Pharaoh's anger. I wanted to say the same but this older version of the High Priest was kinda creeping me out. He was so thin he was almost skeletal. Comparing him to Kaiba was hard, especially when Kaiba wasn't only so much younger but had almost managed to get super buff in the last six months. Grandpa told me exercise helped with grieving. I wondered if someone had given Kaiba that same advice. Joey wouldn't stop cracking jokes about him skipping leg days it but I think that was because he was jealous.

"It is intended to return those bound in the afterlife the living world." Isis sounded serene but there was an argumentative glint in her eyes. She put in a dramatic pause that made the Pharaoh start to scowl before speaking again with very slow and clear words. "A counter-spell made from its teachings may be capable of doing the very reverse. Of setting free those who have been sealed in stone in our world and releasing them to the afterlife."

The Pharaoh broke eye contact briefly, just so he could quickly look back at the carving of the Dark Magician. That didn't for long before his eyes flicked again to the carving of Blue-Eyes. He stared at the dragon for a long time.

"With study, perhaps it is possible that those who have been sealed may be made whole once more in the next world-"

The Pharaoh gritted his teeth, his eyes darting back and forth like he was trying to imagine it, or thinking it through.

"-and that we may yet be reunited with them there when our times come." Isis added softly.

For a long time the Pharaoh didn't say anything. His expression was thoughtful and it made him seem so much wiser than the version of him I knew.

"I am aware of what such a thing means to you, Isis." He eventually said in a low, hoarse voice. I'd never heard Kaiba speak that softly before. He opened his mouth to continue but then stopped and tried to stifled a cough that didn't sound good. It made his body shake and Isis held out her hand and took a step towards him before he waved he off with a dismissive growl. A tense and contemplative stillness settled into the air between the two as they paused in the tablet's shadow. With a final look over it the Pharaoh's expression hardened to be stonier than the carvings themselves. "Destroy it." He quietly commanded. "It cannot remain intact."

Isis blinked at the strange order, looking every bit as confused as I was. "But what of Mahad? What of Kisa-"

"Destroy the tablet. That is my command, Isis." He repeated with a thin growl. "As long as this profane spell exists, my cousin's eternal rest will be threatened." The Pharaoh scowled. "I will not be so negligent as to allow him to be ripped away from the pleasures of the afterlife when he finally takes his rightful place there." His chest jumped as he swallowed another cough. "Break it apart and bury whatever pieces remain."

Isis looked calm again but still sounded dubious as she asked "Bury them where?"

"Wherever you see fit. I care not." The Pharaoh sneered disinterestedly with a flippant wave of his hand, as if the subject was a bad smell he could waft away.

Isis frowned at the instruction ever so slightly and paused. I think she was choosing her words carefully.

"This is fate." She eventually cautioned. "It will not be changed so easily."

"I said destroy it!" The Pharaoh shouted. The cold calm snapped and the burst of anger made him look ten years younger. Suddenly he was looking a lot closer to the Kaiba we knew.

Isis didn't even flinch, like she was used to it. They stared each other down for a few more seconds before she agreed, sounding so tired. She looked lonely and glanced longingly back at the depiction of the Dark Magician.

"Khrr!"

With a short strangled noise the Pharaoh leaned over again, the sharp ridges of his spine pulling against his robe as he coughed roughly in splutters that made his body shake.

"Pharaoh." Isis whispered quietly, the tension between them forgotten instantly as she stepped forward and reached out to him. Her hand gripped his arm as he hacked nosily, the sound and movements of his body only letting up as he spat onto the floor.

His spit was red.

"The air in here is poor for your constitution." The priestess's expression was steady and complicated. Strength layered on top of sadness, acceptance and a deep friendship – the kind I felt when I looked at Téa or Joey. I could see it all in her eyes.

In a smooth motion the Pharaoh pulled away from her and straightened up his robes with a sweep of his hand. "The air here is the least of my ailments." He replied with disinterest, dragging his hand across his mouth to wipe off the red trail that had leaked out one side of his lips. "You know that as well as I."

Isis rubbed his thin arm gently, like he was fragile and could break if she touched him too hard and then retreated back a step.

"Isis." The Pharaoh muttered. He leveled a meaningful look at her. It was intense and pointed but almost sympathetic. His long and slightly gnarled fingers wrapped themselves around the base of the Millennium Puzzle and tensed into a steady fist. "The previous Pharaoh gave his life to save our world. I will not allow the betrayal of that sacrifice to be my legacy."

After a few seconds of sharing the look Isis dutifully bowed her head.

"Yes... my Pharaoh." Her sad look evaporated and something focused and determined took its place, like she had a plan. "I shall attend to the tablet's destruction personally."

The Pharaoh grunted and apparently that was all it took for Isis to know she'd been dismissed. The priestess turned on her heel and slowly walked out of the room with the short cloak draped over her shoulders rippling behind her.

When he was certain he was alone the Pharaoh scoffed, tiredly.

The fist that had been clutching onto the Puzzle loosened and he palmed the Item. The pinched look he gave it was regretful and the following one he gave the carving of Blue-Eyes was so bitter. He let the Puzzle go and slowly stroked the carving of the dragon's neck. The motion was so tender it didn't suit him, but it didn't stay that way. Abruptly everything about him shifted – the hand softly petting Blue-Eyes coiled backwards, his fingers tightening into a fist as the Pharaoh's expression morphed into one of anger and he thrust his arm forwards in a furious punch that slammed his hand into the harsh stone wall. His knuckles cut open and mangled at the impact as he left his fist there, embedded in the tablet and hung his head.

"Damn it." He hissed.

Another round of harsh coughs bubbled up from his throat as closed his eyes and covered the face of the Blue-Eyes carving with his clean hand.

"Forgive me, Kisara."

"...GAAAAAAROOOOOOOU!" As if the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was answering him a loud echoing roar bounced around the walls and ceiling. The Pharaoh didn't react to it all, even as it rang out like it had been played over a loudspeaker.

Oh no.

That sound hadn't come from inside the room, it'd come from somewhere in the corridor... behind me.

"PzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZT!"

I recognized that noise!

A new crackle of supercharged white electricity shot down the hall way, slamming closed the door to the Pharaoh memory in my face as it arched over the doorway in front of me and careened down the hall, briefly lighting up everything it passed at it ricocheted on through.

"...I guess I know where to find the Guardian." I noted out loud, glancing down the steadily darkening corridor that the zap had come from as the density and thickness of Anubis's sludge solidified into a harsh black thicket of thorny slime constructs. If there really was something wrong with this Guardian like the little Kaiba said then the job of finding it had just become much easier. I stepped back from the door I'd been pushed away from and took a deep breath before marching straight down the hallway towards the deepening darkness, squinting a little as the elaborate carvings and colorful paintings that covered every surface began to look more faded and damaged by the ooze with each new step I took in that direction.

As the light illuminating the hallway was swallowed up by the sludge I noticed a piece had been ripped out of the neck of the next pillar along. That set me on high alert. It also had a hole in the middle as if a huge blast had clipped it, and the wall behind it had a chunk missing that the goop leaked over in heavy streams. I swallowed nervously and stepped as lightly as possible down the hallway, dodging over the dislodged chunks of plaster and stone that cluttered the floor in the rare patches that the slime hadn't claimed. Ruined things weren't a good sign, but at least they meant I was heading the right way.

The next pillar along was maybe only six foot away and it was damaged too. Deep and long claw marks covered its surface and it had been upended to lie on its side. The banged up pillars and walls continued deeper down the shadowy hallway in a long trail of destruction. The partially broken and tipped pillars made it look like a large creature had crashed its way through the corridor and that matched up with what Yami and I had been suspecting. All of this could easily be the work of one of the Blue-Eyes White Dragons in Kaiba's deck, especially if it had gone bad and started lashing out for some reason. For my safety I hoped that wasn't the case, but if it was then I'd deal with it. For Kaiba.

As I walked its length the hallway seemed to be getting slightly wider with every few feet. I thought it was a trick of the ooze or my eyes being funny until finally the now slightly-less-than-narrow corridor opened up in a large, circular antechamber lined by pillars and flaming wall sconces that hissed nosily as gunge dribbled down the walls to drip into the flames.

Something big stirred and groaned, right in the middle of the room. I took cover behind the last pillar I'd passed just to be sure, but I didn't really need to. The longer I stared out at it from behind my cover the more sure I became that it wasn't going to come after me. In fact, the monster looked like it could barely move.

It was weird to see one of Kaiba's dragons out of its usual attack mode. Even seeing it played in defense mode was rare despite the fact it had very good defensive stats. I guess setting it that way contradicted Kaiba's personal approach to life. This Blue-Eyes instead struggled to stand and fell back down like it was being pushed back to the chamber floor by something I couldn't see. Ooze was climbing up it's limbs and spreading over its wings, turning them black and leaving a slick trail behind with each small movement. Its claws scratched grooves into the stone underneath it as it snarled out an angry growl at a pointed tendril that crept across the floor towards its chest, forcefully unsticking itself from the pool around its body and hauling itself onto it's feet only to gnash in pain and sag back down.

Its tail twitched slovenly and it I think it became vaguely aware of me as a loose chuck of plaster from the wall crumbled under my feet. It growled faintly, sounding weak and scared.

"Hey, it's okay." I told it as it tried to get up and tumbled down again. I hoped it was friendly. Or more friendly than Kaiba, at least. It snarled in reply and shuffled its discolored limbs like it wanted to get away from me the closer I got as I came out from behind the pillar and crossed the sludge towards it. "I'm here to help."

I really was, and if it recognized me Blue-Eyes should know I wasn't an enemy. Atem and I had sent our own monsters to fight at the dragon's side against other opponents a few times. Maybe it would remember that. Or maybe not. Instead of listening it bared its teeth like it was mad, looking every bit as angry as Kaiba did when Atem turned the tables on him in a duel. Blue-Eyes inhaled abruptly and snorted, its slitted nostrils rapidly filling and emptying while the light played across the surface of its uniformly colored eyes. With no pupils it was hard to tell exactly where the dragon was looking, but the shine of white across the glossy surface of each eyeball showed its line of vision as the monster's gaze jumped all around me. As it finally made eye contact the dragon moaned at me like it was in pain and then settled to lie limp on the floor.

I looked over it closely, searching for something I could do to help.

On careful inspection I could see something small and golden glinting from its body. "What's that?" I questioned, squinting at the shining object in the low light. It looked like a stick, or a small pole was jutting out of Blue-Eyes's chest, right underneath where it's neck joined up with it's torso. It had carved open a hole in the dragon's chest and a steady stream of Anubis's ooze was creeping across the floor and winding around its body to get to it. It looked like it'd already been infected as a bubble of gunge blistered out of the wound and popped loudly.

"That can't be good." I frowned

With a coil of its body the dragon snapped at me, hunkered down to hide the thing from sight and went completely still. Other than a long low hiss it didn't seem inclined to do anything else as I stepped closer. Only then did I notice the slight movement of its limbs as it twitched its tail, its talons, its legs, its arms, its wings and flexed its jaw as though testing its limbs.

"Blue-Eyes?" I realized what it was doing just in time to react.

"GaROOOOOU!"

I leapt out of the way as it lunged forward with teeth and claws, missing me and bashing its head into the pillar that had moments ago been behind my back. It shook its head in agitation, shaking it around wildly and roared with rage. The snake-like nostrils at the tip of its snout flared, sniffing at the air while its body wheeled around the chamber looking for me.

"Woah!" I yelped as the while scales twisted around so that it could try and slash me again. Its wings arced outwards as it reared up onto its back legs, briefly giving me a better look at the golden object. It was the hilt of some kind of weapon! Something small. Maybe a knife, or a dagger?

Blue-Eyes howled in agony and I ran away from the gnashing teeth as it snapped down at me. Its next swipe sailed right over my head and struck deep into the stone wall behind me.

"Hey! Calm down!" I called out, watching it writhe and its long body curl backwards as it tried to yank its talon free from the wall. I think it was stuck. Now was my chance!

"And I bet I know what's making you so angry." I added to myself. I put on my game face as I charge back over toward the dragon's chest. It tried to bite me as I dodged under its jaws and I was really glad for the worn down threads on the underside of my shoes as I slipped under the arm Blue-Eyes had embedded into the wall and jumped for its torso.

"GaRrrrrOooUUuu!"

I'd never heard a dragon scream before, until now. It was as loud as thunder as I closed my hand around the gold hilt and tried to pull it free. It was elaborate; too elaborate for hunting or fighting with and covered in hieroglyphs and winged snakes. Blue-Eyes twisted and turned as I braced against it and pulled back with all my weight.

"Urgh! It won't budge!" It felt stuck. I couldn't move it even as I pushed back with my legs. I was almost thrown off as Blue-Eyes flailed and roared. "It's okay." I ground out through gritted teeth "I'm going to get it!"

With a huge rally of its strength Blue-Eyes stopped trying to pull itself free and instead lunged forward into the wall, powering through the stones and plaster to break straight through it with me hanging on to the dagger sticking out of its chest.

I hadn't known breaking out of a Soul Room was possible, but now I did. It was like clipping out of bounds in a video game. Outside was just space - endless star-studded space, exactly the same as I'd seen before ending up in Kaiba's Soul Room to begin with. The cosmos stretched out in every direction, still just as expansive and beautiful to look at as it had been the first time, but cold and unnerving.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt."

The hair on my neck stood on end as a static charge filled the air around me, drawing my eyes back to Blue-Eyes.

"Ah."

Without its trapped paw to distract it the dragon was staring at me narrowed eyed with its mouth slightly open as it collected a new blast of white lightning in its mouth. Its free arm brushed me away from its body, my sweaty hands slipping off the knife as Blue-Eyes punted me across the chamber and blasted at the ground where I fell. Rolling away wasn't the most dignified way to dodge but it got me away from the attack as it blew apart the stone floor, opening up another hole into outer space as the bricks fell away.

"Blue-Eyes, stop!" I shouted as it shot off another, and then another, chasing me with lightning as I ran around the edge of the room away from its breath. "Please!" I yelled, as the attacks opened up more and more gaps in the ceiling and walls, destroying any pillars that got in the way as I ducked and weaved between them. "I can help you!"

At that the dragon roared, angrier than ever and its next sweeping burst of white lighting cut a scar across half of the room, destroying the last three remaining pillars in one go. The room lurched ominously and loose stone started falling from the ceiling.

This was bad.

"Kurrrrrrrrrrrrchkkkkkkkk" A deep, low rumbling sound like mountains rubbing together made the room shake and begin to quake apart. The walls, ceiling and floor all pulled away from each other, separating into their own small platforms and levitating away from each other against the black backdrop of outer space. The corridor that I'd come from unwound like there was nothing keeping it together anymore, leaving hunks of pillars and whole doors to float around on their own islands without anything to connect them. Within seconds the part of the floor I was standing on broke away and separated itself from the nearby stone bricks, creating a platform surrounded by nothingness as I scrambled back from the edge of the newly made ledge. The fragments of the chamber and corridor swirled around Blue-Eyes as it floated in the middle of the wreckage, occasionally beating its wings and throwing its head around the rubble in a rage like it was searching for me.

I ducked down as its eyes swept over in my direction, my platform floating just far enough above the dragon's head to shield me from view so long as I didn't stand up fully.

"What do I do now?" I murmured softly as a platform with a door and a few lumps of stone floated past me on a slightly quicker orbit that my platform's. I noticed too late as a large portion of a broken pillar followed after them, crashing into my island with enough force to send me flying over the edge.

"WAAAAAH-huh?"

Something grabbed my arm. Its grip was like a vice as it stopped my fall and slowly reeled me back up towards the platform, yanking me over the lip of the drop so I could get my breath back as my heart caught up to the great news that I wasn't going to die.

"Yugi." My rescuer greeted - or said in a way that was close to a greeting. It was more like a factual acknowledgement of my name.

I glanced upward as I panted, my pulse going a mile a minute. "Kaiba!"

Cold blue eyes stared down at me as Kaiba crossed his arms over his bared chest. The baggy red sleeves of a coat I'd never seen before slid against each other as he did so. The look he gave me was unimpressed, skeptical and filled with recognition - like he knew exactly who I was and thought I was being a pain. The expression alone told me that despite the weird Egyptian clothes, this was Kaiba. The real deal. I was sure of it.

"Thanks for the save!" I led with, not getting much of a reaction beyond a stoic stare. "It's good to see you."

"Why are we in space?" Kaiba immediately questioned with tight words, his narrowed eyes flashing around the cosmic backdrop before coming back to land on me.

"I honestly don't know." I laughed breathlessly. And if Kaiba didn't know either then I guessed no one would. "Wait." I added, glancing up and down Kaiba's body. "Weren't you a dragon?" He was the last time I'd seen him, at least.

"I was; yesterday." He replied shortly and for a second I thought he wasn't going to say anything else until he added "A lot's happened since then. Keep up."

"Right." I agreed, not really knowing what that was supposed to mean but going with it anyway.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!"

"Watch out!" I called, ducking and pulling Kaiba down with me just in time as a blast of white lightning flew over our heads.

"What!?" Kaiba snapped, watching wide eyed as the platform floating behind us was decimated and crumbled away. All of the rubble was sucked downward in an arcing spiral as it was pulled toward the center of space.

"Kaiba, don't." I warned but he ignored me. He strode back to the edge he'd pulled me up from and glared downwards towards the direction the blast had come from.

"Pyzzzzzz-"

"Blue-Eyes, cancel attack." He shouted tersely with complete authority, yelling down to the dragon as it charged up another blast with sparks of white electricity gathering into a ball in its jaws.

"-Zzzzzzzt!"

Blue-Eyes didn't listen.

"Arg!" Kaiba grunted, holding his arms over his face to shield his eyes as another beam flew past his head, barely missing him. He stumbled backwards away from the ledge and glared down at the dragon furiously.

"Blue-Eyes! I said canc-"

"I don't think that's going to work." I interrupted, trying to break it to Kaiba gently that on this occasion his most precious monster probably wasn't on his side.

He sneered at me, apparently only accepting the idea as Blue-Eyes blasted yet another attack in his direction that flew over our platform in a burst of light and then belted out a deafening roar.

"GARRROOOOU!"

The pupils in Kaiba's wide eyes shrank and almost seemed to quiver in shock for a moment before he blinked them and his face settled back into its normal expression. Even by Kaiba's standards that was a weird reaction. "Yugi." He growled, glaring at me like this was my fault before I could ask him if he was okay. "What the hell is going on? Where are we?" He demanded.

"We're in-" I had to pause. I'd wanted to tell Kaiba we were in his Soul Room, but I wasn't sure if that was strictly true or not anymore.

"Forget it." Kaiba scoffed, not even giving me three seconds to think up how to finish my sentence. "This is just a dream, it's not like it matters." He concluded.

I frowned at that. "This isn't a dream."

"What ever you say." He countered sarcastically, not believing me at all. I guess that is exactly what a dream person might say though. "Because talking dragons are so normal."

Talking dragons? I hadn't heard anything like that?

"GarooooouuuuuuUUUUUU!" Blue-Eyes roared out again, making Kaiba scowl and then turn his head away from his monster dismissively like he was ignoring it. It just sounded like a normal roar to me but the way Kaiba had gritted his teeth at the sound made me think twice. Was it something only he could hear?

"What's it saying?" I asked curiously.

"Some nonsense." And at that Kaiba gave me an icy look that told me not to push him anymore for an explanation before changing swiftly the topic to something else. "Where's its scar?" He demanded, glancing back down at Blue-Eyes from our higher vantage point and studying it with a possessive look. He seemed to think I knew more than him for some reason but I was equally confused by everything going on here. Even more so with his strange question.

"What scar?" I felt my eyebrows pinch into a frown.

His eyes narrowed and he stared grimly at the middle of Blue-Eye's body. "Blue-Eyes always has the same scar when it attacks me in a dream." Kaiba explained sourly. I glanced back at Blue-Eyes in confusion, and a little bit of suspicion. I'd just seen Kaiba's Blue-Eyes cards up close in his vault. None of them had any marks or tears - no defects that made sense to manifest itself in his subconscious as a scar - but Kaiba didn't have the full set. Did he feel guilty for ripping up Grandpa's Blue-Eyes? He'd never shown any sign of it when summoning his own onto the field or bragging about them. He'd never apologized to Grandpa either, or for any of the mean things he did to him. I wanted to ask, but as I opened my mouth the Blue-Eyes we were currently dealing with ended the conversation. It made Kaiba scowl as the dragon snapped up at him and then opened its jaws wide.

"It's going to attack again." I called out as Blue-Eyes lined up our platform in its sights again. It pointed its mouth towards us as sparks of lightning pulled together at the back of its throat.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzzzzz-"

"Come on." Kaiba ordered and casually strode to the edge of the platform. "We need to move." And with that he leapt over the side of the island into outer space.

"Kaiba!" Was he crazy!?

I ran to the edge and skidded to a stop, looking down to find Kaiba glaring back up at me like he was bored with his arms crossed over his chest on a platform that must have been floating by just beneath our own. "Get down here." He commanded.

"Right!" I nodded and then jumped down as well, setting off at a sprint to keep up with him as Kaiba quickly glanced around and ran off the edge of our new platform as the previous one exploded into a mess of lightning and stone.

"-Zzzzzzzt!"

We jumped and ran from island to island dodging through the wreckage like mascot characters in an old video game, ducking behind things and dodging off the sides in random directions to land on whatever platform was next passing by. I wasn't sure what Kaiba was thinking, until the constant barrage of attacks finally paused and the dragon instead started roaring again in a rage. "We lost it." I noted, as it swung its head around and bellowed. All of our running around must have created blind-spots for Blue-Eyes, but it wasn't beat yet. It began firing its attacks off randomly, taking down platforms one at a time as it tried to find us. It took down an empty island, then a passing pillar and finally a platform with a door distantly behind us.

He glared at me for noticing, but Kaiba winced as the last one was destroyed, massaging his temple as splinters of wood replaced the door's orbit. That worried me.

"Are you okay?" I asked as we stopped running and jumping to catch our breath, panting behind the cover of a large metal door. These doors and the memories inside of them were part of who Kaiba was. Blowing them up couldn't be good for him, though from what I'd seen it was the memories of Atem's High Priest that would be taking the hit while were were on this side of the sealed door.

"It's nothing." He replied in short clipped words. The standoffish tone created a tense silence as we rested against the door and breathed heavily.

I was the one to interrupt the pause, but given who I was with that was to be expected. "Kaiba?" I glanced his way as I wiped a bit of sweat off my forehead with my sleeve.

"What." He grunted disinterestedly, pulling his head back from peaking around the door we were squatting against.

This wasn't really the time or place for my question, and I knew that, but after everything I'd seen in here hadn't I already decided it was time to start _making_ time for Kaiba? That began right now.

"When we're both back in Domino we should do something." I proposed evenly.

"You'll have to be more specific. I've got lots of 'somethings' to get done when I'm back." Kaiba replied indifferently.

I closed my eyes and scratched my chin with one finger as he completely missed my meaning. "I mean, meet up." I tried again.

"Sure. Let's do lunch." Was Kaiba's sarcastic response. It was like he didn't believe me.

"I'm serious." I pressed. "I know you've always liked Atem more than me, and I know it's hard with him being gone." Kaiba's clear blue eyes sliced back to me in an instant, focusing on me properly the moment I'd said Atem's name. I kept going, now that I had his attention for real. "Losing a friend is really tough. I understand that better than anyone." I added softly, looking down and away from Kaiba's eyes as they somehow became more intense with every word. In fact, it had to be even tougher if you didn't have that many friends to begin with, like Kaiba. "I was a bad friend to you, to leave you to go through that alone." It was a confession and getting it off my chest made me feel so much lighter, like I could breathe fully for the first time in months. "Let me make it up to you."

"We're not friends." Kaiba stated matter-of-factly without missing a beat. "And mark my words, Yugi. If we meet up again, it'll be to duel." He shot back. "Not for some pity party."

"You like to duel. I get that." I replied carefully, trying to find a way to get through and have a real conversation with him even though he clearly didn't want to have one with me. "But can't you just turn it off for a minute?"

"I don't 'turn off'."

Something about the way he said that was strange. It wasn't boastful, or sarcastic, or angry and those were the three Kaiba settings I knew best. It was blunt and sounded almost a little resigned.

Maybe he really couldn't?

Alright then. That just meant I had to come at this from a different angle. Like Atem would have done.

"Okay. Then I accept your invitation." I declared, fixing Kaiba with my most determined look. I had to be firm. I couldn't let him deflect and fall back on insults to get out of it.

"What are you babbling about?" Kaiba sneered.

"You just invited me to lunch." I noted, feeling a smile pull at my mouth at the way his eyes became suspicious and irritated. "So I accept." I concluded. I could almost understand why Atem liked taunting him so much now, the look on Kaiba's face when his own words backfired on him was pretty priceless. "You've got a secretary, right? Just have them send me the time and dates when you're available."

"And what makes you think I'll actually do that?" He countered with eyes like icebergs. It was a question, rather than a rebuttal. It didn't seem like he was going to try and argue with me judging from his tone, but then again he hadn't put up much of a fight when I'd told him I'd be the one to duel Diva instead of him on live TV in front of a stadium of his fans either. Not backing down, facing him without blinking and channeling all of Atem's boldness and confidence had proven to be the best way to get him to agree to what I wanted. Now it was starting to look like that strategy could work outside of the dueling arena too.

"Because I'm going to come after you if you don't." I decided, speaking clearly and with conviction, just like I had at his exhibition duel at Kaiba Land. "You got that?"

"Is that another threat?" His face said he couldn't care less if it was, but he watched me very closely and gave himself away.

"Yeah, maybe it is!" I nodded, not giving in an inch. It was a threat of lunch, so not much of one by most people's standards, but then again Kaiba wasn't most people.

"You're overplaying your hand, Yugi." He cautioned me with an aloof expression. "I was surprised to see you'd grown a backbone when you started making demands in my stadium. It piqued my curiosity." Kaiba's voice heated up with a note of warning before getting slightly louder. "But don't think you can order me around. I learned intimidation tactics from the best and you're just a little barking dog in comparison."

Yeah. Now that I'd spent some time in this place I knew that too well – better than Kaiba could guess. "It's not my preferred method." I admitted steadily. "I just want things to be better between us, so I'm going to make that happen."

"Hnh." Kaiba grunted and turned away from me again to look back at his dragon. "Good luck with that."

That sounded almost like acceptance and he went out of his way to pretend to ignore me as I smiled at him, which was a pretty solid confirmation. Kaiba's eyes went back to scanning the platforms and rubble that was floating all around us to blank me out, so I did the same.

"Oh! Hey, down there!" I pointed, spotting a familiar sight way below us on another section of floating stone. "That's the door that I came though." I called out as I turned back to Kaiba. "If we can get to it I bet it'll take us out of here."

"I'm not running from my own dragon." Kaiba shot back, his eyes suddenly shining brightly with anger in a way that I'd always found kind of creepy.

"Kaiba, we've got nothing to fight it with." I reasoned firmly, drawing my eyebrows to down to look just as serious as Atem would have. Kaiba checked under one of his coat's sleeves for a minute and then scoffed nastily for some reason. "We're sitting ducks here, and we're running out of islands." I frowned. Blue-Eyes didn't show any signs of letting up. At this rate it'd find us. It was just a matter of time until its process of elimination finally caught up to our position. Kaiba had to have realized that by now. "It's going to find us eventually." I warned. And we had no way of knowing how many of these doors could it destroy without harming Kaiba. Sitting by while it blew them up one by one to look for us could be even worse for him than running away.

"Tch." Kaiba scoffed, glaring down at his rogue dragon one last time before growling "Fine." He cast his eyes over to the door I'd pointed at and scowled at it with a look of dark calculation.

I nodded, appreciating that he was going to go along with my idea without much of a protest.

"Now we just have to figure out how to get over theeeeeeerrreeeeeeeeeee~" My sentence went long and high pitched as I felt Kaiba snatch up the back of my jacket and haul me up off my feet like a sack of potatoes. After watching him once toss Mokuba onto a helicopter I already knew exactly where this was going! "Kaiba, don't. Please!"

"You're the one that wants to get over there so badly." He deadpanned as the arm that was holding me up coiled backwards and his whole body lunged forward in a quick surge as he physically threw me off the platform.

"Not like this! Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Being tossed through space had to be one of the scariest things ever. My stomach bottomed out as I fell through through the void, reaching out my arms as far as they'd go as the platform with the gilded door got closer and closer.

"GARRRRROOOOOOUUUUUU." Blue-Eyes roared out, so I guess it had spotted me in the air but that was the least of my problems as the ledge I needed to grapple onto came speeding towards me almost too quickly for me to grab at.

"Umf!" It knocked the wind out of my chest as I landed, my upper body catching onto the ledge as my legs dangled off it into absolute nothingness.

"I made it! Thank goodness!" I shouted with a sigh, pulling myself up carefully until Kaiba's bark of "Move, now!" made me scramble onto the stone ledge quickly as possible. I just managed to roll out of the way as he backed up on the platform above me, sprinted to the edge and long jumped across the distance to somehow land in a dramatic crouch by my side like an action hero in a movie. All he was missing was an explosion and the effect would have been perfect.

"Pyzzzzzzzzzz-" It was like Blue-Eyes had read my mind and wanted to help out!

"Quick!" I shouted over the loud buzzing sound of the charge building up. In a rush we each grabbed one of the handles and pulled back the entrance to the double doors in unison which would have been cool if there was any time to take in our team coordination, but there wasn't. Kaiba almost wrenched his half of the door off its hinges as he yanked it back and I tried to copy, shifting mine open more than enough to escape through.

"ZZZZZZZT!"

With a shout we both jumped through the doorway, the shot fired at our heels blasting the door I'd opened loose from the wall and into the space station corridor as I ducked down to dodge it.

"Kaiba, are you okay?" I called out, glancing around to catch sight of him. Kaiba turned translucent as the ball of white lightning stuck him in the back and passed right through his body, like he was a ghost. "Kaiba!"

"Relax. I'm fine." He noted, seeming completely unaffected by the hit. "This dream was getting boring anyway." He told me as his body was slowly converted into tiny balls of light that then evaporated into the air before my eyes.

"Kaiba, wait! I need to tell you som-!"

And just like that I was left on my own again.

"GaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrooooooooooooOOUUUUUU!"

With Blue-Eyes.


	31. Chapter 31

**Kaiba**

The Yugi scene set in space was nonsensical but at least everything about it had been graphically sound. It'd been curiously high fidelity in comparison to most of my dreams; not that having dreams was common for me. Not in comparison to the nightmares. Sleeping for only twenty minutes at a time was supposed to discourage all of that but apparently that strategy wasn't working.

The following dream wasn't half as abstract, or as realistic.

Everything smelled like the subtle musky scent of Atem's room and the proportions of the setting were inexact and sloppy. The real throne room didn't look like this. The throne itself was too tall and the ceiling wasn't high enough. The columns that held up the room were overly long and the shadows from the sunlight coming through the main doors were all being cast in different directions. All of the finer details on the guards stationed around the room were wrong and the audio was off. If this environment was a KaibaCorp hologram I'd have fired the goon who'd passed it through quality assurance.

At least the view out of the palace doors was accurate. My brain had rendered that correctly.

The scenery was boring but the high vista gave it a cinematic air as the palace grounds stretched into the main city and then disappeared out into the desert on the far horizon. It didn't measure up to the view from my office at KaibaCorp but since building skyscrapers wasn't on Atem's to-do list it made for a decent alternative. I could see his whole kingdom from here; just like I could see all of Domino from my desk if I turned around but I preferred working with my back to the city. It made it easier to concentrate on what I was doing.

Looking out across Domino just irritated me, watching the pedestrians milling around like insignificant insects on the street below and knowing that the only person worth keeping an eye out for wasn't ever going to be down there no matter how long or hard I searched the crowd for his ridiculous hair. The closest I'd get was Yugi's and like everything else about Yugi even that was a lesser imitation of the Pharaoh's. I could pick out the difference between the two of them from orbit.

"Kaiba?" Atem's voice started saying. He hadn't been in the room a second ago but he was now.

The Pharaoh walked me backwards and pushed me down to sit on his throne before leaning to my mouth and kissing me demandingly. His fingers threaded through mine as he perched on me, actually looking like a demi-god as the sunlight seemed to soak into him and make him radiate energy like a solar panel. In a small circular motion he rubbed a knuckle against the underside of my jaw and I opened my mouth against his, allowing his tongue to slip inside. He was really into it for a guy who'd told me that he didn't want us messing around his palace in plain sight.

We parted to catch our breath. Atem looked out across the view and hummed contentedly, like he was taking it all in. I glanced around his throne room and then taunted, "What happened to keeping things formal?"

"No one else is here." He practically purred. The tone of his voice was extremely distracting. So much so it distracted my blood out of my brain where I usually liked to keep it and redirected it somewhere far less useful.

And he was right. The guards that had been lining the throne room at the start were gone. It was just him and me now. That was suspiciously convenient.

Was this going to be one of 'those' dreams?

With a sweep of his quick pink tongue he leaned down to my chest and licked around my heart as if mapping out a territory for invasion, planting a kiss like a flag in the middle. It made me shiver, but despite the unfamiliar texture of his tongue on my skin I wasn't going to lie and pretend it wasn't exciting too.

I didn't have lecherous dreams like this very often. Was I just supposed to go with it, or try and snap myself out? Irritating as it was there was a logic to having one now. I'd brought this upon myself after letting my body go on that unregulated hormonal tangent with Atem back in the bath. As far as these kind of dreams went this wasn't a bad set-up. The throne room setting was provocative and gave me the same sharp thrill I always got from flaunting the authority of anyone or anything that tried imposing rules on me. Doing anything in a place like this would definitely leave a mark on Atem's memory too. I'd like to see the Pharaoh try to reign over his lackeys straight-faced after doing what we'd done in the bath in here.

_"Kaiba... wake up."_

Despite my name being said in Atem's voice his mouth didn't move from kissing my chest. He kept going at it like he was on a deadline. Instead it felt like the instruction had come from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. That figured. Just when the dream was starting to get interesting.

"Our times up." I told the Atem sat on the throne with me as he lifted up my arm and started kissing my wrist.

_"Whatever happened to only sleeping once you were dead?"_

"Shut up..." I growled back.

My throat was dry. It threw off the tone of my voice. Even to my ears the words just sounded hoarse and 'grumpy', as Mokuba would put it. Damn cigarettes.

Waking up was such a pain. The warmth of the bed and smell of Atem's stuff nearly got me back to sleep. I didn't think the ancient Egyptians even had beds like these but I wasn't gonna complain about it. A breeze from the window of the Pharaoh's room crawled over the skin at the base of my neck. I pulled the sheet further up my body to block it out, until something that I vaguely acknowledge was probably Atem snared the fabric and stopped me. Whatever. The room was hot so it wasn't overly annoying and for once I still felt relaxed enough to fall back to sleep if I wanted to. That was rare. Especially since something was softly but insistently messing with my hand.

"Kaiba."

I opened my eyes half-way, entirely uncommitted to the idea of fully waking up despite Atem's loud mouth.

For a moment I just lay there like an idiot and blinked uncomprehendingly at the impossible sight of the Pharaoh as he lay across from me on the bed. His blazing crimson eyes were staring at me intently while he continued rubbing his thumb against the inside of my wrist and kissing the heel of my hand like he was about to bite down and drink my blood.

The intensity of his stare made my pulse pick up.

"Were you just watching me sleep?" I questioned as suspiciously as physically possible. "And why are you making out with my hand?" The sight was appealing on a basic carnal level, but weird.

His lips quirked against my skin and I felt his affirmative hum vibrate through my wrist as he lifted his mouth away from it to speak. "To wake you up."

I stared at him. Was I still dreaming? The room was correctly proportioned, so being awake was my best bet but the Pharaoh could make anything around him seem surreal with just a single look or a couple of words.

"My people believe that waking a sleeping person too suddenly risks causing their soul to become separated from their body." He explained, lowering my arm back to lie flat on the bed and smoothing down the sleeve of the coat he'd given me so it hid the cigar burn that was closest to my pulse point. That one was otherwise impossible to hide without wearing something with full length sleeves – just as Gozaburo had intended for it to be.

"You'd be the expert on that." I countered. The bed sheets fell down my body to pool in my lap as I sat up slowly and pulled my arm away from him so he couldn't play with it any more.

Just the idea of him lying there with a full view of the burns singed into me made my skin crawl. They marked me as weak. I despised them for it. I hated even more that out of all the possible people in the world, it was the Pharaoh, my rival, the King of Games that had seen them.

"Yes." Atem replied, but there was none of the energy in it that came as part of our usual banter. Instead his tone was empty. "I don't recommend it." He added in a low voice, looking away from me to stare out across his room.

"Tch." I shouldn't have said that, given his reaction, but at least the slip up confirmed that I really was awake. Piercing the Pharaoh's armor of smugness was usually a cause for celebration but I hadn't done it deliberately this time and snubbing him by accident was honorless and amateur. I rubbed the grit out of my eyes left over from sleeping and glanced around the room as I tried to wake myself the hell up so I wouldn't make any additional mistakes.

Looking at the window I estimated we'd slept through most of the afternoon.

The sun was still up but it was getting darker outside, or as dark as it ever got here. Thanks to the overly bright moon and stars the night sky of Atem's afterlife had a strange luminous quality. The light far exceeded the polluted skyline of Domino or any other modern day city but if we were gonna spend whatever was left of the day looking for Dark Renewal in every shadowy corner of this overgrown sandcastle then that worked to our advantage.

"I'm getting up." He announced authoritatively, shifting to sit over the side of the bed and standing up with a solid flex of his well-defined leg muscles. The late afternoon sunlight made his skin shine like burnished bronze. Now that I was used to it my Pharaoh hologram was gonna look distractingly anemic by comparison the next time I dueled it. Atem strode over to a large bowl and poured out water from a pitcher into it before leaning down and washing his face in the makeshift basin. His long fingers traced the sharp aristocratic angles of his cheekbones as he rubbed some sort of cream from a nearby pot into the hollows under his eyes before dipping two of the linen rags into the water.

I couldn't just lie around watching him all day like a useless ornament. Not when there was a duel to win.

I called up the interface of my Duel Disk while he dunked the cloth down deeper to soak it through. "Dark Renewal's still in effect." I noted. That wasn't a shocker. One way or another we always ended up doing everything ourselves. By that logic sending the Pharaoh's toadies to find this magical coffin was set up to fail from the very start.

Atem glanced back at me over his shoulder as he pulled out one of the towels he'd soaked and wrung it out before dabbing it along his neck, behind his ears and across his forehead, lifting his crown up to get at the area underneath. "It's time to join the search."

His expression was determined but his trademark confidence was misplaced. He was forgetting a big factor currently working against him 'joining the search'. I didn't have enough data to judge if he was claustrophobic or cleithrophobic, but it didn't matter; like hell that freak out he'd had back in the cave was a one-off. Throwing himself down any tunnel or into a catacomb was gonna give him a punishing wake up call.

"You better have a plan of attack by now." I grunted, testing if he'd figured that out for himself yet. Limits existed to be smashed, but ignoring them completely was idiotic.

"You mean to say that you don't?" Atem turned back to me after wiping his face dry. "Kaiba, I'm disappointed." He taunted with a goading expression that set my teeth on edge.

"I don't live here, unlike you." I sneered back. I didn't feel awake enough yet for our usual repartee. "And for the record, anyone stupid enough to intrude into my mansion would regret it. Instantly." I'd lined the walls of the Kaiba manor with enough state of the art solid vision projectors to summon in a Blue-Eyes into every room. Some were too small for it to maneuver around it, but my dragons didn't need much mobility to bite down and rip a limb off any snake that tried to get at Mokuba or me where we slept. "My new security system takes no prisoners." And if that failed I now had a small army of ex-black ops guys on my private payroll to finish the job. They'd paid for themselves already when we'd cornered Diva. Now I just had to get Mokuba to stop referring to them as 'the Kaiba Troopers'.

Without losing any of his confident smugness the Pharaoh picked up the second cloth he'd wetted and started running it through his hair, teasing the sharp tips with his fingers and polishing up the strands in well-practiced motions that made the crimson-black notes even glossier than normal. If that's what he'd been trying to do to mine then it was no wonder he'd messed it up.

"So what's the next move then?" I demanded.

Atem paused mid-motion, wearing a thoughtful expression like he was considering his hand in the middle of a duel. "I want to visit Seto and see what can be done for him."

It didn't matter that the fake was also called 'Seto' by some contrived coincidence, hearing my name come out of his mouth was irritating. Why bother anyway, if the guy was still completely out of it.

"By then Karim, Shada and Shimon will have assembled for evening prayers in the temple." Atem added, reanimating as he pulled the towel across his hair, the nonsensical fronds springing back upright to return their usual position after each bit he toweled. "I'll find them there and gather their reports."

That at least made sense. We needed to know where they'd already looked if we were gonna be most efficient. There was no point in backtracking over old territory if it had already been checked out.

"Then I'll meet you and we'll begin the hunt together." He continued, giving his hair one last sweep before putting the towel back down. "Unless you want to come with me?"

"Tch. Pass." Come with him to visit my fake? No. To the temple, for prayers? Hard no.

They weren't my gods, so why bother. I didn't subscribe to any of that nonsense, apart from maybe a closeted worship of the ruthless power of raw capitalism. The knowing smirk Atem shot my way probably meant he wasn't being serious, even as he asked his follow-up question. "What will you do in the meantime?"

"Find something halfway edible." I scowled, already knowing that was going to be a pain. Atem's eyebrow rose wryly and he opened his mouth to argue. "That isn't fruit." I added pointedly before he could get a word in.

Like I wanted any more fiber in my diet right now. I'd cut off my nutritional intake ahead of time so I wouldn't have to find out what counted as a washroom in this backwards dimension, but I hadn't planned for my excursion to last any longer than the length of a duel. What should have been a few hours was now days and standing up too quickly was starting to give me a head rush. It was time to bite the bullet and find something to eat. My mental map of this place also wasn't complete yet. Charting more of it out while I tracked down a kitchen would be a solid use of my time in case I ever wanted to holographically recreate the setting once I was back in the real world.

"And get my clothes." I concluded. Unlike the Pharaoh I wasn't going to stand around half-naked for a minute longer than I had to. My Duel Disk repair kit, spare parts and cigarettes were all still inside of my coat pocket and my briefs would definitely be dry by now.

Atem lowered his eyebrows and gave me a contemplative look that made me grit my teeth. "What?" I hissed.

He blinked at me slowly before answering with a shrug and walking towards the smaller room that was attached to his chamber. "I doubt that'll be possible." He called back.

"Why? Where are they?" I demanded, suspecting sabotage even before Atem could reply.

A long length of bright red material the same as the coat he'd fished out for me was in his hands as he emerged from the adjoining room. "The servants will have taken them away to be washed by now." With a dramatic spin he pulled it through the air, making the heavy fabric flutter and fan out as he tugged the new cloak around his shoulders with a flex of his biceps.

Great.

"They're dry-clean only." I sneered, sarcastically.

"I'm sure the servants will check the labels for the washing instructions." Atem parried as he slipped on a pair of sandals onto his feet. Next to them was a second set clearly intended for me. I suspected they were my fake's cast off since they were stiff with embroidered winged snakes and one look at his living quarters told me that guy had that kind of thing on his mind.

"They don't have labels, they're custom made." I snapped back. What did he take me for, some mall walking window shopper? And how would his servants know what the symbols meant? Even if they did it wasn't like they'd invented the solvent necessary for dry cleaning yet.

Oh, right. He was being a smart-ass.

"Funny."

He smirked back smugly, then softened his features up in a way that made me feel uncomfortably warm.

Other than a few pippy one liners and gloating puns I'd never noticed the Pharaoh had much of a sense of humor. I was reassessing that now. It was mellow and always came out of the left field but it existed. Monarchs weren't famous for being a comedic breed of people and Atem clearly wasn't going to make history as 'the funny Pharaoh', but he wasn't completely humorless either. It was a weird discovery and he was making it even weirder by staring at me with the strange expression on his face. It looked contented, which was ridiculous given everything going on.

"What's with that look?" I deadpanned.

It cleared up instantly, hardening into something goading and challenging that I found infinitely more comfortable to look at. "What look?" He parried, becoming totally unreadable and self-satisfied.

I rolled my eyes at him. "It's like you got dealt a perfect hand at the start of a duel." I sneered. That was the best thing I could compare it to. I shouldn't have bothered asking. It's not like it mattered if the Pharaoh started pulling stupid faces. His eyebrows both perked up in surprise and then pulled together into a thoughtful, analytical expression. Almost like he'd just begun to figure something out. I refused to be simpering enough to ask about it.

"Forget it." I stood up slowly and straightened out my ridiculous cosplay. If he wanted me to know then he'd tell me and if he didn't then it wasn't my business, and I didn't care.

"Alright." He replied as Atem blinked the question away. The Pharaoh shrugged at me and then got busy preening again as he tucked the part of his cape that hung around his neck underneath the larger of his two necklaces and slipped the Puzzle on over his head. I had to hand it to him that the silhouette he cut was striking as he marched over the doorway; aggravatingly regal and full of his signature pomp.

"Kaiba."

Atem paused as he placed his hands on the door handles and turned back to me while I walked over to follow him out of the room.

"Things may happen very quickly after we find Andro Sphinx." He remarked thoughtfully as he lingered on the threshold of his room, not going anywhere despite the action plan he'd just outlined for me. "Once we defeat him Anubis will have no minions left to defend himself with."

Like I wasn't already aware of that.

"I know." I crossed my arms. "Thanks for the useless reminder, Pharaoh." In fact I was looking forward to it. Anubis might have only one Death Counter verses our two but that wouldn't matter once I set my dragons on him and kept blasting until he was nothing but a smouldering pile of ash.

"And after that-" Atem added slowly.

"-We part ways. I get it." I cut in, forcing the Pharaoh to shut his big mouth half-way through his sentence. I was sick of hearing about it.

After hesitating at the doors for three seconds he glanced pensively back at me over his shoulder. "Yes. We part ways." He repeated slowly, quietly enough that it seemed like he was saying it to himself. The Pharaoh turned back to me, locking onto my eyes with his like they were laser pointers. "And you're still willing to continue this even knowing that?" He asked, sounding as serious as a heart attack.

"Tch." Where was this coming from and just who did he think he was dealing with? His dedication to playing Schrödinger's Pharaoh was impressive, but even Atem wasn't deluded enough to actually believe I was just gonna surrender and quit trying to change his mind, or that I'd spend the rest of my life moping around Domino like a lovesick dolt because we'd made out a few times. That would be stupid. He had another thing coming if he thought I was going to back out now and judging from the tentative look on his face he knew that as well as I did.

"You're stalling." I called him out on it drinking in the way it made him look shocked, as if he thought he was unreadable. "Get on with it, Pharaoh. You're blocking the door."

He blinked at me owlishly with those crimson eyes of his that now matched his cape. It made him look like an idiot, which made me seem like an even bigger idiot by association.

"Before this battle with Anubis ends..." He began before cutting out and putting on his mid-duel face like he was having to play the words out one by one onto a Duel Disk. "Before you return to your world, I want to..."

Atem paused again and frowned, looking away from me sharply. "No. Nevermind."

"What?" I demanded. Whatever this was it had better be good.

"It's nothing." He countered and turned back the door, about to run off without having the guts to finish what he was mulling over.

"It's clearly not 'nothing'." I noted, unimpressed by his sudden shy act.

"It's a conversation for another tim-"

"-Spit it out already." What could possibly deserve all of this pointless stammering?

He glared at me for interrupting him and his voice heated up to match. "I was going to say that I want us to try going further, you impatient oaf."

I stared at him deadpan. Going 'further'? "Going further how?"

He must have figured there was some cognitive disconnect there. "Going further than what we did earlier." A flush of red stained his cheeks that looked totally opposed to his determined expression and his whole body went rigid like he was about to summon in a monster as he pointed between our bodies with his finger.

Wait a minute. Did he mean...?

"You want to do what?!" I yelled.

At just the idea of it my body went exactly as stiff as his now was.

"Right now?!" This was damn sudden! And why bring it up so soon? We'd only just started doing anything at all!

He shook his head at that, but even after replying "No. Not now" my pulse still picked up and began racing just like it had in the pool. This time the adrenaline rush felt differently calibrated - not excited; more like my body thought someone was about to try and attack me. I scoffed at my own reaction. It was such nonsense, especially after what we'd already done in the bath and the dumb dream I'd just had. I pulled my voice back to a normal volume and set my expression to match. I had to make sure I was understanding this right and this wasn't some poorly-timed translation error or cultural misunderstanding.

"Just to be clear; you're propositioning me for -" my brain stalled at how to get the word out of my mouth. "-'that'?"

His eyebrow perked up quizzically and the most moronic staring competition in history lasted a few seconds as we just watched each other like fools, until slowly Atem nodded.

"We don't have to if-"

"-It's fine!" I barked back, interrupting whatever 'out' he was about to throw at me like I was a coward who needed an excuse not to rise to his challenge. His eyebrows jumped up his forehead and he pulled a face.

"It's fine." I repeated, more evenly.

This was happening fast. Maybe too fast, as ridiculous as the very idea of anything so fundamentally basic outpacing me was, but like hell I'd ever allow the Pharaoh to overtake me. I could take anything that he could dish out!

"Our time together is a scarce commodity." Atem added with a lack of surety that didn't suit him as he shifted his weight between his feet. It was like he thought he had to justify the request to me. He didn't. I could understand the reason why he was bringing this up so damn quickly, now that I'd had a second to think about it. "I want to experience this with you, while I can." He concluded quietly.

I wasn't totally comfortable with the idea of doing 'that', but I wasn't against it either, and I got his point. We didn't have days, or weeks or months to get to that point slowly. We had the length of this duel, and that was it. It was hardly a grounds for 'romance', but doing it wasn't really about romance - just two different sets of biological components slotting together. Worthless anxiety aside, statistically speaking I was around the right age to be experiencing it for the first time, and despite him being another guy my years of prior association with Atem made him a good candidate so with the question of eligibility answered that just left the mechanical details.

"How do we decide the positions?" I interrogated sarcastically. "Coin flip?"

"Hmm." Atem looked unsure but injected some confidence into his voice anyway as he came up with an answer of "We'll do what feels best. Whatever comes naturally."

What a load of bull. I couldn't imagine playing the socket would come to either of us 'naturally' when being the plug was clearly the stronger, more tactically sound option.

"Tch. So we'll just figure it out?" So much for the masterful strategies of The King of Games.

Atem chuckled at that for some reason and taunted me with a mild smile that made me blush humiliatingly if the sudden heat on my face was any indicator. "I believe we will." He agreed with a slow blink, looking too eager not to be annoying.

Lewd bastard. I'd sooner draw straws than willingly waste a single moment of my valuable time thinking about something like that.

Snapping "Well then it's a good thing there's still an opponent hiding out around here to beat" only made his face look more irritating as he kept smirking at me like the expression was going out of style. "Until then keep your mind on winning the damn duel." I bit out, scowling as my face got even hotter at the short laugh he threw my way before turning on his heel.

"I always do, Kaiba." He taunted and swept out through the doors in front of me with his cape flying behind him.

**Isis**

Having vanished away for hours the Pharaoh and Other Seto reappeared just as swiftly as they had dissipated. I felt the Pharaoh's presence shortly before I heard his light footfalls in the hallway ahead, accompanied by Seto Kaiba's somewhat hoarse voice. It was no surprise to me when our paths crossed in the courtyard that separated the royal quarters of the semi-divine from the rest of the palace.

There was a saying that gossip traveled faster than lice and the slightly ruddy hue painting the Other Seto's face as he reemerged from the Pharaoh's private chambers was sure to prompt interesting conversations behind closed doors between those who were inclined to such talk. For the last two generations the palace had known little of the historically tantalizing scandals that came to define the reigns of the Pharaohs of the past. Given that, I imagined the curious few would be even more interested than one would expect in the rare thrill of newborn royal gossip.

Dressing Seto Kaiba in clothing more suitable to the palace did nothing to disguise his outlandishness as the two of them conversed in our guest's foreign tongue before the Pharaoh finally gestured off in the direction of the Mansion of Life. At my steady approach both young men turned to me and Seto Kaiba volleyed a sharp look in my direction, perhaps to hide his obvious embarrassment behind hostility. Without another word he stalked off down the hallway in the direction the Pharaoh had indicated with the march of a general to a battlefield, coat billowing behind him.

"My Pharaoh," I greeted, respectfully lowering my head as I did so. He paused, staying still as I neared him instead of simply returning the gesture and leaving to pursue Seto Kaiba. I took this as invitation to an audience of some sort. "You look well for having rested." I observed.

Already the variety of injuries that he had accrued were beginning to heal and fade. His color was brighter and the pristine linens revived his regality, though they already bore signs of creases as if something large had laid on the material for a long amount of time. I chose not to indulge in speculation as to the nature of that object.

The Pharaoh nodded back, "Thank you, Isis. You're looking better as well." He commented and I smiled at his kind words. A clean new robe and tamed hair could indeed set to right even the most egregious of wrongs and now that I had expunged the last remaining traces of Sphinx Teleia's filth from my body I felt renewed.

For the moment after we merely stood quietly, the Pharaoh neither moving away to continue elsewhere nor speaking to perpetuate the conversation. Instead he remained silent, weighing something behind his eyes as his brows drew together in concentration. I waited quietly while he rallied his thoughts.

"Isis." He glanced downwards pensively.

"Yes, my Pharaoh?" I wondered what was bothering him.

His eyes roamed the richly painted wall next to us before finally flicking back to mine, meeting them with a probing intensity. "When I lived, I thought nothing of it -" A line on his forehead creases slightly as he continued his thought. "-And even once arriving here in the afterlife, I saw it as little more than a special sort of friendship..." A curious statement, but not one that had been selected thoughtlessly judging from the Pharaoh's troubled expression. "But I now know that the way you look at Mahad is more than that." He concluded, keeping my gaze steadily trapped beneath his own. If his words were a question or statement was unclear, but the expectation of my honesty shone through his expression with perfect clarity.

"Yes." I replied truthfully. "It is so."

We had not thought to burden the Pharaoh or the rest of the priesthood with our private happenings and as younger people not yet familiar with such life experiences, Seto, the Pharaoh and Mana had remained largely oblivious to the feelings that Mahad and I shared, but our veiled affection for each other had not gone totally unnoticed by the older and wiser of the palace's denizens.

"I regret that I didn't recognize it sooner." The Pharaoh admitted.

Once more I was humbled by my Pharaoh. "Often it is difficult to see something if one has no knowledge of what they are looking for." I gently assured him. It seemed that now, with the advent of his growing fondness for Seto Kaiba, that the Pharaoh recognized the closeness that Mahad and I shared for what it truly was.

"Why have the two of you kept it a secret?" He asked curiously, his eyes darkening as they narrowed slightly as if confused or very mildly concerned. I felt my hand softly clench into a gentle fist as I held it over my heart, searching for a way to explain our decision.

Our courtship had barely begun before the fateful events that lead to the end of he Pharaoh's short reign. To have it be made possible here, in the afterlife; it was my greatest wish granted. Mahad and I both felt as though it was a blessing precious and fragile enough to be worthy of disguise.

"It is ours." I began. Already I knew that while my short explanation was heart-felt, it was also too tentative for the Pharaoh to full understand as he regarded me silently as though waiting for me to elaborate. "Our affections needed not concern anyone else besides the two of us." I tried once more. "We wished to come to know each other in this new way privately, at a pace of our choosing."

At that the Pharaoh's quizzical expression slowly eased in one of comprehension. "I understand." He quietly replied. For a moment his head turned away from mine and he blinked, his face looking wistful in the momentary lapse of confidence. "Kaiba's been my rival for years, but I feel as if I'm only now coming to know him." The Pharaoh frowned pensively, glancing back the way the Other Seto had departed as though to check the subject of his thoughts had not appeared at the mention of his name. "Is it selfish of me to want to deepen our connection, even though I know it's fated to end?"

"My Pharaoh?" I questioned, wondering where this belated line of questioning had grown from.

"Accepting defeat isn't in Kaiba's nature." The Pharaoh noted, his tone frustrated and respectful in equal measure as he spoke his thoughts aloud. "Until the very second before he returns to his world he'll believe without a doubt that it's possible for him convince me to return with him." He met my eyes with his own, steadfast and determined as though preparing himself to face down an answer that he did not want to hear. "Am I unjust for seeking to strengthen a bond I know that I'm destined to break?"

"I cannot say." I replied humbly, unable to answer that question. "Weighing the selfishness of a thing is difficult in matters of the heart." I observed neutrally, holding the Pharaoh's stare. The heart had a strange way of changing things; becoming both heavier and lighter than the Feather of Truth many times in a single lifetime and forever shifting the delicate balance of everything around it.

"So then, it's true." He concluded, drawing a solid thread out from the diplomatic words I had unsuccessfully attempted to weave. I was not the Pharaoh's champion, High Priest, nor Vizier. Dispensing such wisdom was not something made familiar to me by the expectations of my current station. All I had was the prudence of honesty and so I began again.

"Had the Millennium Necklace shown me a vision of Mahad's fate I believe that our courtship would have continued regardless." I offered solemnly, my words drawing back the Pharaoh's consideration from the well of shallow remorse it had fallen into. A dark and slender eyebrow hitched once more in rueful intrigue. "Each and every moment that we shared together was a gift to treasure." I explained and smiled at the memory of our early courtship. It was such a shy and strange thing. "A gift that's value was beyond the cost." I reflected sincerely, knowing I would not have traded a single second of our time away despite the heavy toll of Mahad's loss.

I lowered my eyes to the Pharaoh's feet respectfully so my manner was seemingly neither brash nor impertinent as I risked a question that was not my place to ask. "How is it that the Other Seto makes you feel, my Pharaoh?"

Fully fixated on me now the Pharaoh's eyebrows rose slightly in surprise and then pursed together across the bridge of his nose as he carefully contemplated the question.

"Kaiba makes me feel-" The first of his words were swift and sure before abruptly halting. His focus turned inward, his eyes becoming distracted for a mere moment as he searched his heart for the truest of words just as I had not a moment ago. "He makes me feel alive." He replied, slowly, deliberately, each word heavily weighed with meaning and selected with a great deal of care. "More than alive." He settled on.

"When he returns to his home will that feeling fade?" I questioned gently, already knowing the answer. I could see it in the Pharaoh's face. Without the Other Seto things would be peaceful and orderly again but the downturn of the Pharaoh's lips and pinching at the corner of his eyes told me that despite the sizable disruption that Seto Kaiba represented, the loss of his presence would still be felt keenly by our young Pharaoh.

"Yes." He conceded simply.

"Will it have been worth it?" I pressed.

"Yes." There was no hesitation in his reply. He announced it with the surety of a royal proclamation. "In the beginning it was strange, seeing him again." He noted. "I didn't know if I should've felt joy or anger. His actions left me conflicted." He admitted and the Pharaoh's expression turned inward once more. After a long pause he managed a small smirk. "But now, no matter what happens, I'm glad for the time we've spent together."

A burden lifted from his demeanor. He filled with confidence anew, once more becoming the commanding Pharaoh of Egypt and no longer a confused, conflicted young man.

"Thank you for your council, Isis."

I bowed to the Pharaoh, recognizing the unspoken end to the short conversation.

"Of course, my Pharaoh."

With a belated smile he turned from me, stepping backward before reorienting himself to face the direction of the healing chambers. With a final appreciative nod he departed, his steps light but purposeful. I turned to continue on my way as the smells of the evening meal grew thick on the air and tantalizing my tongue with their promise. The Pharaoh was most welcome to my council, but I was not as adept at giving it as Mahad or Shimon. I wondered if I had managed to provide the answers he sought as he strode out of my sight. Throughout the conversation an air on unease had lingered around him and I hoped I had lightened it as I continued my walk in the very direction that Seto Kaiba had escaped in and brushed aside the silk tapestries that hung closed over the entrance to the Mansion of Life.

The palace had many kitchens and bakeries, enough to service the many priests who dwelt within its walls. Though it had once been normal for the evening meal to be served individually to each of us on a small table in chambers better befitting the rank of priest, the Pharaoh had done away with that tradition upon his glorious return to the afterlife. Now we were invited to feast here with him in the Mansion of Life, where only the royal family had once dined. This was not the only break from tradition. The Pharaoh had re-imagined meals as a communal affair, seated on benches on either side of a single long slab of stone. It was a more intimate way of sharing a meal and one of only a few changes the Pharaoh had suggested to daily life upon his return. He had not shared the origin of the idea and it was not the place of any priest to question the novelty or reasoning for the Pharaoh's wishes, so we had accepted it without explanation.

A selection of lower ranking priests and Shimon sat about the room, a tension in some of their faces that I could not place until one glanced over his shoulder and by following his eyes I spotted the object of their cloaked agitation. Seto Kaiba lingered in the background, leaning against a wall at the edge of the room like a human obelisk and carefully observing everything and everyone within it as if he were a large and brightly plumed vulture. His near predatory leer was faintly disturbing as he repelled all attendants who proved bold enough to chance approaching him with a sharp look. Despite rejecting their offerings he also refused to make any motions towards the table, even as I met his gaze questioningly. He scowled back me for doing so, apparently hungry but patient in equal measure. Perhaps he was hoping that if he proved intimidating enough everyone else would vacate the chamber so he could dine in private. The ploy may not have been as unbelievable as it outwardly seemed, I noted, as in the periphery of my vision I noticed the tenser of the two lesser priests hastily leave the room.

Shimon smiled at me as I entered, appearing skillfully nonchalant as he ignored the onlooker, rinsed his hands in a small bowl of water and reached to the center of the table toward a plate of dried waterfowl. I respectfully inclined my head to him and found a seat on the bench to this right side.

"Good afternoon." I greeted, pulling a plate toward me and glancing around at the table's offerings. It seemed I had missed the first course and other than the hushed sounds of the servants collecting old dishes and replacing them with new ones there was no noise to speak of. None of the muted conversation or agreeable ambience that had come to accompany our meals. The silence was thick enough to cut and I suspected it would remain that way until Mahad was himself again and the various interlopers within the palace walls were gone.

"We have a guest." Shimon stated on that subject, maneuvering a lump of roasted pigeon into his mouth with his hand.

"It seems so." I agreed, glancing backwards at the Other Seto. While I didn't question the Pharaoh's judgement it was impossible to think of Seto Kaiba as being anything other than an incredibly strange choice of potential consort. They were not a sensible, nor a logical match. From what I observed the two could hardly be more different and yet if the conversation I had just shared with the Pharaoh was any indication his feelings were deepening regardless. I sighed, finding the feeling of Seto Kaiba's eyes on me quite off-putting as I poured a cup of wine for myself.

"The resemblance is uncanny." Shimon chuckled affably as he watched me begin to gather small servings from the nearby plates and collect them on my own.

It was. Despite all the ways that they varied Seto Kaiba's current expression was indeed very close to one of the High Priest's own in this moment. He was looking at the plates with a face that spoke of disinterest but his eyes glinted with the same half-starved ferocity that our Seto's often shone with after a lengthy day of expending his energy. I gently shook my head as I gathered together a plate of the various dishes I knew the High Priest was most partial to. Perhaps they would tempt Seto Kaiba as well and end his staring.

A small silence descended as I went about my selection until Shimon cleared his throat to speak. "Try this." He advised. With a waggle of his finger he called one of the servants forward; an attractive young woman whose shape was ample. He gesturing for her to fill a nearby cup with a beer that I belatedly recalled Seto was rather partial to. It tended to make him more brazen and less interested in bothering to check his tone or volume. I didn't appreciate the drink for that, but Seto enjoyed it nevertheless. Patting the servant girl on the rear as she retreated he then turned and offered the beaker to me.

I smiled at Shimon gratefully as I received the cup. He had realized my intent so quickly. His insight in handling powerful young men was an ever-impressive one that manifested itself in wonderful and surprising ways.

With the offering assembled I beckoned the servant girl who Shimon had just patted on the rear to my side and nodded in the Other Seto's direction as I handed the food and drink to her, clearly intending for her to close the distance toward Seto Kaiba. Seeing this the Other Seto swallowed thickly and leveled a dangerous expression at the quaking servant girl. It was difficult to judge who was less pleased with my command as she shakily crossed the floor toward him. She kept her gaze to the floor as she offered him the plate and beaker. From my side Shimon observed as Seto Kaiba's leer sliced from the servant to me and then back again. The remarkable feeling of trying to feed a feral or distrustful animal struck me as he warily watched me for a very long few seconds and then grunted in acceptance. Ignoring the servant entirely, he swiped the plate and cup from her hands and waved her off.

With the strange exchange completed I turned my attention to the table and could finally begin my own meal in earnest, making mild conversation with Shimon as we discussed how best to order the search for Mahad's casket and other matters of state that were less dire. After perhaps ten minutes I risked glancing backwards toward our guest. Our Seto ate with a single-minded efficiency that had begun to turn my stomach as I was witness to it in recent months. This Other Seto picked at his food like a small bird, inspecting each portion closely before slowly pecking away at it as though expecting it to be poisoned. Even in spite of his overt suspicions there was a peacefulness to the proceedings that lasted another few minutes before it was suddenly broken.

In an abrupt rush of pale fabric Mana sprinted into the room carrying a crumpled piece of papyrus, her hair flying around her in a cascade of dark waves. She panted and wiped her arm against her forehead. "Shimon! I went into the vault to get what you said for the Pharaoh and -" She paused as all of our eyes turned on her and composed herself awkwardly. She took a deep breath and then slowly let it out in a high pitched whistle, lifting up her hands and slowly lowering them as she did so. From beside me Shimon nodded to her encouragingly. "I found Mahad! The casket's in the royal vault!"

"There's a 'royal vault' and no one thought to check that first?" Seto Kaiba abruptly barked.

Mana jumped and shrank back a little from the Other Seto, only belatedly realizing he was there at all as she had charged passed him.

Shimon nodded at the news, frowning, but not in surprise. A hand moved to scratch at his beard contemplatively as he spoke. "The royal vault can only be accessed by the Pharaoh himself, or those carrying a royal edict-"

"-Making it the perfect place to hide." Seto Kaiba scowled before sneering and adding. "Let me guess, it's also dark, narrow and underground with only one way in and out?" His tone was sardonic, but his assumption was correct.

"Sections of it are, yes." Shimon confirmed.

"We should act quickly." I announced and Shimon copied me as I found my feet and stood from the table. Now that I knew where Mahad was I could not sit by and be idle. "Mana, find the Pharaoh and-"

"-Don't bother." Seto Kaiba interrupted blandly, handing the remains of the plate he had been picking at off to a startled servant. "I'll deal with this myself." He declared and swept out of the room with a scoff.


	32. Chapter 32

**Kaiba**

"Move." I ordered the guards as I strode down corridor that led to the royal vault. I must have caught a glimpse of it at some point while navigating the palace and logged it as a notable landmark in my brain. That was the only explanation I was willing to accept. The idea that my knowledge of its location was some distant throwback to a nonexistent connection between me and my stupid hat-wearing doppelgänger wasn't a possibility I'd ever lower myself to considering.

The smaller of the two guards shifted nervously. He melted into an anxious sweat under my glare while the guard next to him hesitantly opened his mouth like he was about to make a lame excuse. "We cannot, High Priest." He relied, making me scowl.

'High Priest'. That pissed me off. Isis smirked in my peripheral vision as she and the rest of Atem's ancient Egyptian knockoffs joined me by the entrance. I crossed my arms and didn't dignify her expression with a reaction as I faced down the pair of dolts. Atem's whole palace staff seemed to be determined to annoy me. If these fools were under my employ in the KaibaCorp's security department I'd have fired them a long time ago. Hell, they'd probably have never made it off of probation and into permanent employment to begin with. "Then I'll just blast through you." I threatened, taking a step to open up my dueling pose and flashing my hand to my Duel Disk. The device's blue UI was disrupted by a red message that blinked at me from my arm. "What?" I scowled, taking a moment to recognize the graphic I'd chosen to represent the 'Deck Out' alert. I'd programmed it into the devices to warn duelists when their decks were getting low. I had to tap to dismiss it, the action taking two tries before my half-busted Duel Disk finally decided to respond to my user input.

"That won't be necessary." Yugi's fake grandfather interjected from the side making the guards almost deflate in relief at his words.

I glowered at him, waiting for him to explain that statement as he started fiddling with something inside of his robe. "Ah, there it is..." He noted, pulling a crumpled scroll out of the depths of his sleeves. "The Pharaoh's edict." He announced, presenting the scroll's seal to the guards with a wave of his hand. It was the same one the reject Dark Magician Girl had been waving around a few minutes ago, but that wasn't the only place I recognized it from. It was also the same scroll that Atem had broken up the mood back in his bedroom to write. I was sure of it.

In unison both guards bowed abruptly, hastily picked up their spears and took a step to the side to reveal the tunnel beyond.

'Narrow' hadn't described it at all. Darkened alcoves each containing a carving of some Pharaoh or another lined the walls of a passageway barely wide enough for a single person to walk down and the pathway wasn't just tight, it was irritatingly short overhead as well. The fake version of Yugi's grandfather was gonna be the only one of us who could still walk without needing to bend or contort some part of their body to fit the ridiculous chute. He chuckled, folded both of his hands behind his back a strolled into the tunnel's mouth with a knowing smile as the phony Dark Magician girl effortlessly squeezed in after him like she'd done this before. If I was still in my real coat instead of this loaner from Atem's sock draw then the shoulder pads would have been scraping against the walls as I ducked my head and bent at the knees to shorten myself by a foot and followed.

After five extremely uncomfortable minutes of descending through the hot as hell passageway I could feel a crick in my neck coming on and a gross dampness was beginning to form under my armpits with each second I spent braced against the walls. Good thing I wasn't going to be sticking around down here for a second longer than was absolutely necessary. I planned to deal with Andro Sphinx quickly before the Pharaoh figured out where I'd gone to and tried to follow. He'd probably be butt hurt when he found out I'd ditched him to go spelunking with his priests but the possibility of him freaking out down here made him a liability in battle and despite how much I'd enjoyed watching him kick his own magician's ass at the oasis it wasn't worth the risk.

"How much further is it to the vault chamber, Shimon?" Isis called out from behind me as the passage sharply sloped downwards, aiming her question towards the living fossil at the front of the single file procession.

"Ho ho ho, not far now." he chuckled, not letting any part of this trek through the intestines of Atem's palace get to him. I'd be feeling smug too if I'd been born that short and finally found an advantage to it.

"What's down there anyway?" I grunted as I warily descended the passageway, the sharp incline almost making me lose my footing. Usually I didn't care about other people's stuff but Atem wasn't 'other people' and knowing that he'd sent someone down here for whatever was written on that 'edict' changed things.

"I do not know. I have never been inside the vault before." Isis answered from behind me, "Only those with royal blood or a person carrying the Pharaoh's seal are permitted to enter."

"Trespassing upon the Pharaoh's divine estate without possessing one or the other is an act of treason." The old man cheerfully called out from the front of the line.

"Great." I replied dismissively, the information giving me zero insight into whatever the Pharaoh's scroll might pertain to. It was clearly something about me given when and where Atem had suddenly decided to write it. Knowing that zapped my curiosity awake with an electric cattle prod. I could already feel it begin to gnaw at me.

"We're almost to the vault. Mind the step." He added, switching topics and making me scowl in the darkness.

He must have damn well known there was no way Isis or I could see anything from our position behind the off brand Dark Magician Girl's thick mess of hair. Her head bobbed at the geezer's words and abruptly she stopped moving, making Isis crash into my back as I had to pull up on the spot to stop from colliding into the human Duel Monster. "I see it." She chirped back as I threw a scowl at Isis over my shoulder who only stoically stared back in reply. I should have gone first.

"Here. Take my hand." The false Solomon Muto offered up ahead and I got a face full of the Dark Magician Girl's rear as she bent down and shifted her arm forward. Duel Monsters had a wide and varied fan base and no thanks to Yugi and the Pharaoh popularizing the card there were now few monsters in the game more fetishized than the Dark Magician Girl. That made it weird to realize that the card's real life inspiration couldn't be much older than Mokuba. She hopped down out of the tunnel with a bounce and finally opened up my view of the room ahead. I'd expected that the architecture for half pints would continue all the way to the vault itself but this dimension was always eager to defy my expectations. Instead the tunnel's mouth opened halfway up the wall of a large chamber filled with so much gold that the room itself seemed to glow with a glaring yellow light. I stepped down out of the opening and let the Dark Magician Girl and Yugi's grandfather help Isis out of the shaft.

"What does the Pharaoh's 'edict' say, exactly?" I deadpanned with pronounced disinterest, going the direct route this time while making sure not to give away just how much I wanted to know. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was curious. Isis glanced over at me with a look that seemed vaguely intrigued, though like all of her expressions it was muted.

"I cannot say." The elderly priest's eyes glinted impishly, like Mokuba's did when he knew something interesting and had no intention of sharing the information without a drawn out game of cat and mouse.

"'Cannot', or will not?" I demanded. If it was about me then I had a right to know.

"Whichever is your preference." He parried slyly.

"Tch." I was getting a lot more backchat from the fools of this dimension than the ones in my own. It was getting on my nerves. They were treating me like I was part of their little club, or their equal. Even Yugi and his band of dolts had never bothered putting on airs like that. They'd never pretended that we were actually close enough for me to be treated as 'one of the gang' with all the pathetic cheek that came with it. Good thing too. It was annoying.

"Whatever." I concluded, forcefully reigning in my curiosity while crossing my arms. Secret or not I wasn't in the mood for any more banter. Not with these priests anyway. The only person worth shooting the breeze with was still probably running all of the kingly errands he'd described to me before slipping out of his bedroom with that lewd suggestion. I wasn't totally sure if the idea of doing what he'd proposed repelled or intrigued me, but either way I wouldn't get to find out until after Andro Sphinx was dealt with. That meant I had better things to channel my focus into, like scoping out what was soon to be the arena of my next duel. There was no obvious exit other than the chute we'd spent the last six minutes crawling through, which made making a quick escape impossible if something happened. That made me suspicious as I inspected the rest of the area.

A long stairway of masoned stone led downwards into the vault's heart. Every two steps a brazier lit with a bright flame flickered from the floor casting light across the golden surface of a rectangular base supporting a statue of a ram-headed sphinx which stared forward at the treasure hoard ahead of its nose. I recognized some of the garish paraphernalia as objects that had made their way into the Duel Monsters game as actual cards. The Second Sarcophagus and The Third Sarcophagus were propped up against a wall, the fire light bouncing off of their polished golden surfaces to scatter across the corners of an elaborate gilded wooden box filled to the brim with glittering jewels and golden idols just like the trap card Pharaoh's Treasure. The shining red face of Millennium Shield leaned against a wall beneath a shelf lined with Book of the Moon and Book of Eclipse and various other nondescript chalices, urns and gem-eyed statues glittered in the firelight as they lined the corners of the chamber. None of them mattered though. Not while Dark Renewal's coffin took center stage in the middle of the room for everyone to see.

Isis and the Dark Magician Girl sprinted over to the coffin without a second thought while the old man speedily ambled along behind them. It was like watching a scene of Yugi and his gang reuniting, no doubt soon to be followed by all of the typical blubbering that went with it once we ripped Andro Sphinx out of the Dark Magician. Friends and friendship made people act like fools. I was glad I didn't have any. Despite that weird dream I'd had about Yugi asking me to lunch there was no way I was letting my subconscious trick me into subscribing to any of that nonsense. It made them all look like jabbering idiots. It also made them sloppy. I narrowed my eyes and stood guard with my Duel Disk ready as the three of them took point around the Dark Renewal coffin, each of them placing their hands on part of the lid.

"Lift it together now, and be ready to strike." The old man lectured with a meaningful glance to the other two.

"Right!" The Dark Magician Girl replied while Isis silently nodded with a determined expression.

This was too easy. The location inside of this vault was a drag, but the Dark Renewal sarcophagus itself was just lying here out in the open. There was nothing defending it and no attempt had been made at hiding it despite the amount of gaudy crap down here that it could have blended into it. It's as if Andro Sphinx wanted us to find it.

It was a trap!

"Stop!" I shouted across the room, the Dark Magician Girl's head flicking backwards to me and Isis raising her eyes up a second too late as they hefted the lid up off of the damn thing. My Duel Disk flashed as the trap card Torrential Tribute activated. "Get back!" I yelled. The lid scraped across the floor as it fell free and a roaring sound like fast moving river rapids echoed upwards from the bottom of the empty casket. The water rushed free, soaking the three priests with a gigantic burst of spray as a geyser erupted out of the casket.

With a high pressured howl gallons of water started pouring out over the coffin's sides and into the room.

**Atem**

Our last conversation followed me as I left Isis behind in the hallway.

I wanted to replay the details of it in my mind and analyze her words like the turns of an old duel but instead a new and unwelcome sensation demanded my immediate attention. My steps quickened as the uncanny feeling of eyes following me raised the hair on the back of my neck.

The darkened corridors of the palace gave way to brightness as I passed through the gateway that divided the House of Life from my main palace. Walking between grand statues of the gods I entered into the central gallery. The private structure was walled off from the rest of the palace to shield the sick and convalescing but the structure was open to the air, encouraging sunlight and wind to glide through the chamber to help bolster an ailing constitution. Scripture from the Book of the Dead and restorative incantations lined the columns holding up the stone ceiling and thin linen drapes drawn between them gently billowed on the breeze.

This part of the healing quarters was reserved for only the highest ranking of palace officials. Natural sickness was impossible and injury a rarity in my afterlife. Because of this only one of the room's central plinths was occupied. I crossed the well-polished floor tiles towards the middle of the room where my High Priest lay, the familiar planes of the body he and Kaiba shared unmistakable as it rested on the stone slab.

"Seto." I greeted.

He didn't stir as I stood at his side noting that he had been changed into a simple white robe that stretched down to his ankles and that a thick bandage ran across his forehead and around the back of his skull. As Seto made it a point to always be well presented and it had been a long time since I'd last seen him wearing something so simple. With his stately robes and headdress absent the likeness between him and Kaiba was more pronounced. Their lean faces were near identical and despite the slight change in coloration even their hair naturally fell into similar shapes. Seto's was longer at the back, reaching down to his shoulders, while Kaiba's somehow seemed straighter and more angular, yet the base appearance was the same. The memory of the silken strands of Kaiba's hair sliding between my fingers was so vivid it was as if he was here with me, lying against me again in this very moment. We'd barely been parted for more than ten minutes but already I wanted him back by my side, filling the air with sarcastic remarks and cutting observations.

It felt disloyal to be stood here at my High Priest's bedside and be thinking of his reincarnation instead. Prior to Kaiba's appearance in my afterlife I'd never before had any difficulty partitioning Seto and Kaiba in my mind but now the duelist refused to leave my thoughts, occupying them as stubbornly as his body occupied physical space. Once Kaiba left would I now see him again every time I looked at Seto? Would he be superimposed over my cousin's features like the haunting ghost of an opportunity lost? To be remembered that way wasn't fair to either Seto or Kaiba.

I slowly shook my head to rid myself of the troubling thought and redoubled my focus on my High Priest. Both his robe and bandage were clean and freshly washed, as was his skin and hair. He seemed well cared for despite being unconscious.

Several medical items and a thin bronze incense burner shaped like an elongated arm rested on a wooden table that lay beside his plinth, the pungent aroma perfuming the air with fresh notes of oranges, lotus and honey. The overly sweet smell was intended to ward away evil spirits from ailing bodies and I smirked knowing just how little Seto would appreciate it. Were he awake the very first 'spirit' it would have driven away would be his own. I watched over him for a minute, closely studying my High Priest as he lay softly illuminated by the waning light of the late afternoon. Although his breath occasionally hitched he seemed mostly at peace. I on the other hand was not. Something was watching me. I could sense it more clearly with every moment I remained still by Seto's side. There was no advantage in revealing my suspicions, it was better to wait and let whatever it was play into my hands. I feigned ignorance until a shift in the shadows of the room identified the intruder currently creeping its periphery with what I suspected was a sure intent to accost Seto.

"Good afternoon, Sheut." I addressed to the prowler, recognizing the slim silhouette as it walked the edge of the chamber. "So it's you who's been watching me." I added, unsurprised when he didn't reply beyond a flick of his tail. He wasn't fond of me despite being a guest in my afterlife.

As heralds of Bastet the cats in my palace were free to roam about and do what they liked, yet none of them were as spoiled or venerated as this one due to his pure ebony coat. He'd cleverly learned how to travel between sealed rooms via the palace balconies and had also managed to successfully ingratiate himself with my High Priest who otherwise didn't care much for animals. Seto made a show of disassociating himself from Sheut, declaring him to be 'a cat of ill omen' but there was no denying that since winning Seto's favor the animal had been indulged beyond the norm with fine jewellery and offerings.

"You're visiting Seto too." I observed, only to be met with the unimpressed stare of the sour tempered beast.

Though he was fond of Seto it was still unusual to see him here. The heavily incensed air of the healing chambers tended to keep the cats away. It was equally odd that after another few seconds of glaring he sauntered arrogantly towards me with a confident tail curled at the tip to resemble a shepherd's crook. I raised an eyebrow at the unexpected gesture as he approached my foot and leaned upwards, standing on his back legs to place his two front paws on the side of my knee. He stretched his neck out and delicately sniffed at my hand as it hung by my side, the cold pink nose circling my palm as I lowered it to him.

"You're smelling Kaiba." I noted, feeling the wet appendage briefly skirt across my skin as Sheut conducted his investigation. The idea of it made me raise my eyebrows curiously. Did Seto and Kaiba smell anything alike? Not that I could detect. Seto's scent tended to be subtle and earthy, while Kaiba's I now knew to be sharp and mint-like. Perhaps it was something deeper, more basic to their bodies that only an animal's heightened senses could perceive. Regardless it struck me as unusual that Sheut would ignore Seto's presence for a lingering hint of Kaiba's, especially when the High Priest was lying right before us.

"Here." I offered, gathering up the cat from the floor.

With an angrily squalled "Mau!" he squirmed in my hold as I lifted him up to Seto's plinth. His struggle surprised me and I allowed his lithe body to escape my grasp as he leapt from my arms to land squarely on Seto's chest.

"Hkkkkkkkkk!"

With a pronounced hiss Shuet's back arched upwards, his tail and hackles bristling at my High Priest before darting away across the room to hide behind another plinth.

"Hn?" Though surly by nature I had never seen him spit at my High Priest before. Something was wrong here. Cats were emissaries of the gods; black cats most of all. To ignore their wisdom was ignore a warning from Bastet herself. With a wary expression I turned my attention back to Seto.

Beside the incense burner sat a pair of flint scalpels and an offering to Heka which weighed down a sheaf of papyrii marked with the cartouche of the royal court's chief physician. I slid the top most sheet towards me and narrowed my eyes, squinting as I held the medical log out at arm's length. The alternating red and black ink of the physician's notes wavered back and forth on the page but became clearer and stiller the further away from my face I moved the papyrus.

"Sebek's Blessing has been performed, though to no effect." I read aloud to Seto, the information making me frown. Typically the healers only invoked the crocodile god for surgeries or invasive procedures and he didn't appear to be in need of either. "Your heartbeat is strong and organs are without malady-" I continued, picking out the highlights of the lengthy medical report "-but you won't wake for reasons unknown." I lowered the papyrus back to the side table and replaced it underneath the offering as I had found it, feeling suspicious of the physician's conclusion. "They believe the problem must be 'within' your body."

That explained the purpose of the Blessing. Exploratory surgery was prescribed all too readily by many of the healers. Had Mahad or Isis landed in their care they would have no doubt tried to simply cut Andro Sphinx and Sphinx Teleia out of them.

"Hr!" I growled at an abrupt realization and gritted my teeth. My eyes flashed down to my High Priest as I cast my mind backward to our battle in my throne room, searching for any opportunity Anubis could have used to corrupt Seto just as he had done Isis and Mahad.

_In a flash of necrotic filth a massive claw of living tar sprung forth and wrapped itself around Seto's head and face in a vice-like grip. My High Priest's body went rigid and convulsed faintly as the oozing black construct easily snatched him off of his feet to hold him aloft in the air as though he were weightless._

"Damn it." I clenched my fists in fury, feeling the muscles of my arms tense against the gold bands that bound my biceps.

"Mau."

Shuet's short vocalization drew my attention across the room to where he now hunched in a low crouch, the fine hairs lining his spine standing upwards. I met his eyes as black-furred ears turned backwards like the wings of a soaring bird. Shuet's pupils rapidly narrowed into thin slits as a dark shape reflected in their depths abruptly lunged at my back.

"Hrggh!" One of the surgical scalpels left lying next to Seto's head came to hand as I pivoted just in time to block my shadowy attacker's strike. Mahad's possessed body bared down against my own as my blade caught his dagger, forcing our weapons together in test of strength. One I was certain to win given the disheveled state of Mahad's garb and the passionless grimace of effort that pulled at his lips. "Andro Sphinx! I'm getting tired of these surprise attacks!" I growled into my ambusher's face; his expression empty of any sentiment beyond a knot in Mahad's brow born of the concentration it took to keep our clashing blades at bay.

"As am I." He replied tonelessly and leaned the weight of Mahad's body down on me. I gritted my teeth, turning the parrying blades with a sweep of my wrist to force the weapon from his hand. It clattered to the floor and slid out of sight as I repelled him away from me with a firm kick to Mahad's stomach.

"You've missed your mark twice now. I'll make sure you don't get a third try." I decreed, raising up my arm as my alternate hand swiped towards my Duel Disk. Mahad's body appeared in the same state I had last seen it, the well of of my magician's magical energy still drained as though he'd never used Dark Renewal. Had the spell been a bluff, or another distraction? If that was the case Andro Sphinx had made a great miscalculation in not taking advantage of the chance to restore his strength as I had.

"You are mistaken." Andro Sphinx replied with a muted wince as he straightened Mahad's body and stood across the room from me, exhaustion painted on my magician's features as my opponent made no attempt to move beyond nodding meaningfully to the device on my arm. I narrowed my eyes and glanced down to the display. A new card had revealed itself, the trap Torrential Tribute, and as he'd made no attempt to play such a card on me that mean its target had to be -

"Kaiba!" Andro Sphinx met my irate expression with pure calmness as I felt my brow pinch in hot anger.

"And he is not alone." With a slow sweep of his arm Andro Sphinx's fist tightened and from the pores of Mahad's skin blistered forth a layer of necrotic ooze. It drove itself into the heart of his clenched hand and as he opened his palm back up to me the sludge solidified into five glossy black game pieces. One now resembled Kaiba; the dark pawn a miniature of him that blankly scowled at nothing. Mana's piece smiled happily while the remaining three pawns in the shape of Mahad, Isis and Shimon stood with various expressions of stoicism and serenity.

With swift intent I returned my hand to my Duel Disk, trusting the Heart of the Cards to produce something from the deck that Kaiba and I shared to nullify the trap. To my surprise my draw was halted by a small warning, not rendered in gold like the rest of my Duel Disk's user interface but in an alarming red. The large icon needed no translation as the image of a Duel Monsters card with a line struck diagonally though it flashed in scarlet light. It was a Deck Out alert.

"Think twice, my Pharaoh." Andro Sphinx noted with disinterest as the alarm flashed between us. "With every wasted card your chances of claiming victory over my Master dwindle."

"As do his." I evenly countered, steeling myself against the looming threat of our limited card supply. "Kaiba's Crush Card Virus has already claimed just as many of the cards in Anubis's deck."

"The grave is a barrier of no consequence to the living dead." Andro Sphinx replied apathetically.

I scowled, knowing the statement was no bluff. As Beast and Rock types Anubis's more powerful sphinx monsters may have been removed from battle, but the effects of many Zombie types thrived after being sent to the graveyard just as Kaiba's Virus had facilitated.

"However I am willing to remove Torrential Tribute from play." The sphinx continued without emotion. Mahad's eyes had never looked so lifeless or so hollow as Andro Sphinx watched me through them with a calculating malevolence. He was trying to force my hand.

"And under what circumstance might you do that?" I questioned, tightening my expression to match his own even as I still felt my brow and lips pinch downwards in anger.

Andro Sphinx leaned forward, placing a long wooden box onto the side table that now stood between us. Elaborate scripture ran the length of the box's sides while its uppermost face featured thirty equal squares of polished turquoise organized into three rows of ten.

"Mahad's senet set?" I questioned, my voice tight with ire and suspicion in equal measure. One Isis had gifted to him if I recalled correctly.

"I have observed you. Enough to know that even if restored to full strength my host's body cannot best you in battle." Andro Sphinx replied, steadily sliding the box's internal draw open to reveal the senet pieces within. "And it is folly to try to defeat you in an arena of your advantage." He placed the dark pawns he'd created upon the first row of turquoise squares, carefully setting them down with the face of each humanoid piece directed towards me. "Instead the fates of all five are to be decided by a game I am more suited to." He concluded indifferently.

My eyes narrowed as I studied him. Senet was a game as much about luck as it was skill – a fact Andro Sphinx was no doubt relying on to even the odds in his favor.

"The terms of my game are this..." He began, reaching towards his Duel Disk with a pronounced slowness that I could have interrupted if I'd wanted. From it he drew two cards, placing one at either end of the senet board in face down position. "Should I win your body is conceded to me and the spell on my right will activate..." he announced, flipping the slick card upwards to reveal Soul Exchange. The familiar image of the souls of a dragon and a knight switching bodies leered up at me from the table. "And should I lose then the left shall activate instead, ending Torrential Tribute." he continued, quickly flashing the other card to the left of Mahad's senet board face-up. I glimpsed the spell card Remove Trap for a mere second before Andro Sphinx returned it to face-down position, shielding it from my view.

"You've planned this carefully." I observed with a stiff tone. And he'd looted Mahad's knowledge to do so. A fact that he was soon to discover worked as much to my advantage as his own.

"Power enough to fell a king is not at my disposal. That makes strategy my truest ally." Andro Sphinx countered blandly, collecting the remaining ivory pawns from the draw and placing them in the appropriate starting positions interspersed between the black pawns that now so resembled my friends. "Should you refuse and my Torrential Tribute remain in play then their lives shall be forfeit." Andro Sphinx concluded, Mahad's empty eyes raising up from assembling the board to lock with my own.

"Very well." The terms of the game were suspect but with Torrential Tribute active there was no time to debate it; each second now counted. I thrust my hips outward and leveled a finger to point at my opponent. "I accept your challenge, Andro Sphinx." I declared.

"Then the first turn is yours, my Pharaoh." Andro Sphinx noted, his voice devoid of any inflection as he cast his hand over the board in invitation.

"Alright." I nodded, reaching into the draw to clasp the four senet sticks that would decide my opening play. With a shake of my wrist I tossed them down.

Two landed with their black-colored side facing upwards. An opening roll of two limited my potential options to just one play. I grasped the pawn that now bore Shimon's likeness and moved it from the ninth house to the eleventh with a firm sweep of my hand before glancing back into my magician's stolen face.

"It's your move."


	33. Chapter 33

**Kaiba**

"We must make for the exit." Isis declared as the three priests backpedaled away from the casket. Their footsteps splashed as the chamber filled at a punishing speed.

"Don't bother." I replied, feeling the water level climb another inch towards my ankles. "There isn't gonna be enough time." Not unless they were all better at holding their breath than I was, and that wasn't likely. I'd trained at it for years, Gozaburo's parenting had made it a necessity, and I severely doubted that even at my personal best of five minutes and seventeen seconds there'd be enough time to swim back up the chute without drowning halfway up the tunnel.

"Then what can we do?" Isis's headdress whirled through the air as she turned to direct her question at me. Her eyes shined with an obvious worry that seeped into her expression.

"Stand back everyone!" The Dark Magician girl declared, planting her feet and leveling her gaze at the erupting sarcophagus. "I've got an idea!" She added as she narrowed her eyes.

"Mana, stop-!" The old man shouted, apparently desperate to be heard over the roar of Torrential Tribute.

"-Hiiiiyah!"

One second earlier and it might have counted for something but now he was just wasting his breath. The off-brand Dark Magician's Girl's Dark Burning Attack sped across the vault towards Dark Renewal. The attack ricocheted as it collided with the coffin and bounced back at us. Isis lurched out of the way as it shot passed her towards the fake version of Yugi's grandfather.

"Get down." I ordered, the rising water weighing down the end of my coat as I stepped in front of him and hefted up the Millennium Shield. The damn thing was heavy but I didn't need keep it raised up for long; just a few seconds was all it took for me to find my footing and brace against the attack. "Hnn!" The blast hit the Shield and rebounded towards the floor. The heat of it sizzled as it punched into the water and exploded, throwing micro tsunamis in every direction. The waves soaked us all and struck with enough force to almost knock the old fossil off of his feet.

"Oh ho ho, very resourceful." The senile simpleton commended from behind me with a spluttering cough as I let the Millennium Shield slide out of my hands.

"Save your praise for someone who cares." I grunted. Like I needed his scraps of approval. "And don't do that again." I snapped at the Dark Magician Girl while swiping at my hair to get it out of my eyes. So much for the Pharaoh's pathetic attempt at drying it, though that confused and irritated expression he'd worn as he figured out that he sucked at something so basic was worth the flyaways.

"I'm sorry!" the Dark Magician Girl called out from across the room, glancing around at each of us meekly as Isis and the old man straightened up. They both brushed down their robes and tried to look dignified. It didn't work. Not while the water climbed up the fossil's lower legs and Isis's shins to soak through their gaudy cosplay.

"It is alright Mana." Isis soothed her, speaking in a pointlessly placating voice that was as soft as physically possible while still being audible over the crashing waters. "It was a good thought."

I scoffed. Yeah right. There was no way getting out of this would be that easy. We were enclosed in an underground vault and there was a reason that the trap card Torrential Tribute was named 'Torrential Burial' in other regional translations. Lucky for these saps I had an idea. My Duel Disk flashed up at my command as I swiped my hand to draw a card. By my count Atem and I had already burned through most if not all of the trap and magic card negating mainstays of our decks, but there was still the option of using effect monsters. There was even a monster in this room I could sacrifice to minimize the number of cards needed to implement my new plan.

"I sacrifice the Millennium Shield to summon my Different Dimension Dragon." I declared.

My Dragon spawned at my side in a blaze of light, hovering over the water. It turned to me as the tips of its upper wings brushed against the ceiling, looking uncomfortable in the restricted space. One glance into its eyes and an illogical wave of empathy agitated me. I could almost _feel_ its wordless irritation with the skyless chamber, as if I was absorbing it through osmosis. The idea of that was nonsense so I pushed it aside and glared at Different Dimension Dragon to remind it exactly who was the duelist here.

Yugi's fake grandfather interrupted me and my monster's staring contest. "The trap is protected and behind the walls of the vault is nothing but stone." The old man observed, scratching at his beard like there was a flea circus living in it. "I fear an attack from your creature won't help things."

"Don't stress your heart, old man." I deadpanned, "I'm not an idiot, unlike you dolts." As if I couldn't iterate on the Dark Magician Girl's brain-dead blast.

"Different Dimension Dragon! Use your special ability to leave the room and bring back something from the outside." I commanded, ignoring the Dark Magician Girl's curious tilt of her head and the expression of speculative interest on the old man's face as I ordered my experiment. Cards and spell effects were too unpredictable in this nonsensical dimension. Back in the desert my Interdimensional Matter Transporter had spat us out randomly across the map. I was counting on Different Dimension Dragon's special ability to work the same way but like hell I was going to hitch a ride without testing that theory first.

With an arching of its wings and an undulation of its body my Dragon pulled open a rippling rainbow portal in the wall of the chamber and disappeared into it like a snake down a hole. It vanished and for a whole ten seconds we all stood silently staring from its departure point, until the Dark Magician Girl opened her mouth.

"What should we do now?" She questioned, looking confused, like waiting patiently was a foreign concept.

"Give it a second." I answered shortly and crossed my arms.

"We may not have such time to spare." Isis noted from across the room, glancing over at Yugi's off-brand grandfather as the water level crossed his hips. I didn't bother to reply. I was well aware of how fast the water was rising – probably more aware than she was. I'd been timing it.

Sixty three seconds later the air beside me rippled like a heat haze and with a crooning growl Different Dimension Dragon reentered the room through a second iridescent rift. Something long and thin was clasped in its jaws. The light from the vault's braziers glinted off of the item's metallic finish as my monster extended its neck over to me. I reached out and took it before turning it over in my hands. It was made of bronze and had a scoop at one end with a long curved handle that had been made into the shape of a long necked bird, probably a swan or goose, not that it mattered. Evidently it was some kind of utensil.

"A simpula, from the palace kitchens." Isis observed.

"Close enough." I concluded and tossed the pointlessly ornate ladle into the water between us. That meant my plan was going to work, though I could already see one flaw in it. With only twelve thousand attack points Different Dimension Dragon was one of my weakest monsters and wasn't going to be strong or large enough to ferry us all out of here in one go.

"One at a time then." I concluded with irritation and turned to Isis. "You. Get on the dragon."

Isis's eyes widened subtly, which on her face meant she was surprised and turned to the old man. "But Shimon-"

"-He's lived long enough." My eyes sliced across to the doddering relic in question.

The geriatric fool only chuckled at my jab so I went back to staring Isis into submission. I had no intention of outing her little 'secret' but in an evacuation situation women and children typically scored the highest in priority. That put her at the front of the queue with double points.

"Go ahead, Isis." He added with amusement and nodded to her. "I'll be fine."

She glanced between the two us, like she was debating starting an argument and wanted to size up her opposition.

"We'll waste even more time by debating it." I sneered. Tempting as it was to screw them all and ditch them here doing that would piss Atem off. Saving these NPCs was hardly a valuable use of my time but if it spared me some drama with him down the road then I'd do it, especially since things between us were potentially about to get a lot more serious. "It's my dragon, and my rules." I taunted, watching Isis's bland expression as she eyed us both. "Now get on with it."

I could see it as the conclusion that I was right sank into her eyes like concrete. "Very well." She agreed, silently thanking me as I'd seen her do before with something halfway between a nod and a bow.

The water sloshed around her as she waded over to my monster. The Dark Magician Girl followed her and didn't miss a beat as she cupped both of her hands and boosted Isis's foot upward until the priestess could swing her leg over Different Dimension Dragon's back.

"Get ready." I remarked with disinterest, watching as Isis looked for something to hold onto and settled on uneasily gripping onto my monster's smooth neck. Guess not everyone could look as good mounted as Atem managed to, distracting as the image he made was. She finished shifting around and glanced back to me which was as good as it was going to get.

"Go, then come back." I ordered my Dragon.

It reacted instantly and coiled around in the air to reorientate itself towards another wall before opening up a third portal. Isis flattened herself against its back as it flew through the rainbow hole and both vanished through it.

"When it comes back you're next." I told the phony version of Yugi's grandfather. I'd wondered if he'd try and debate me and demand the girl go first but he nodded and didn't waste his breath. He seemed to get that I was running this show.

We watched the spot on the wall Isis and my dragon had disappeared into as the churning water hit my crotch and the chill made me grit my teeth. Despite the size of the vault its volume was filling up far too quickly to comfortably portal everyone out with time to spare. Given the estimated time lapse between my Dragon's trips and the rate the water was rising getting all of us out of here was going to be a close call.

This time it was the old man who derailed my train of thought as I waited for my dragon to get back. He cleared his throat and raised his voice loud enough to be heard over the water roaring in the background. "I have a question for you while we wait." He mentioned conversationally.

"Oh good." I muttered with every bit of sarcasm I could muster.

He scratched at his beard again as the water devoured half of his torso and frowned thoughtfully for a second before spitting it out. "The Pharaoh has told me of my reincarnation in your world." He began, pretending to be blissfully ignorant to my aggravated grimace. "What relationship does he have with you?"

"None." I scoffed and crossed my arms at the unexpected choice of subject.

None worth mentioning, anyway.

I didn't like thinking about Solomon Muto. My mind invariably linked him to the memory of the only time we'd battled as duelists and everything that went with it. I didn't regret tearing up the fourth Blue Eyes White Dragon. It had been a spur of the moment decision but tactically sound. Blue-Eyes was mine. No one else deserved to be its master and with the forth destroyed no one could ever use the card against me. Despite that flawless logic the memory unsettled something deep inside of me in a way that even Gozaburo had never managed. I scowled at the raw, irritating feeling it dredged up and glared back at the version of old man Muto currently in front of me.

"Why?" I demanded.

"You behave as if I've transgressed against you." He commented neutrally, watching me with a probing gaze that looked somehow a lot like Yugi's. I rolled my eyes at the textbook case of psychological projection and dismissed it.

"You're imagining it."

If anything it would be the opposite – I'd been the 'transgressor' against Solomon Muto. I had no intention of sharing that insight with his bootleg version though.

"Oh, Is that so?" He wondered out loud, just to get under my skin.

I was damn well relieved when another rainbow portal yawned open to my right and my Dragon came splashing back into the room to pull one of us away from this stupid conversation. The water level had risen enough in my monster's absence to now skim its underbelly and wings, keeping it unsteady on reentry as it was buffeted by the water. It even had to beat its wings against to stay aloft.

"That's your cue." I remarked snidely to the old fool, feeling as oddly off-balance as my monster looked no thanks to his banal curiosity. Now wasn't the time to be letting anyone get into my head. I turned my back on him as the Dark Magician Girl helped him up onto my Dragon's back just like she'd done with Isis.

"Hurry on now." He told the dragon while patting its flank. "There isn't much time."

I didn't see so much as sense it as Different Dimension Dragon turned to me, waiting for me to confirm the old man's order. I nodded sharply and it didn't need any more elaboration than that to get going. It already knew its job.

Rainbow colors flashed across the walls of the chamber as my Dragon departed again, taking the mimic of Yugi's grandfather with it. Even with him gone his question stayed behind to irritate me. Why the hell did he assume me and Solomon Muto would have any 'relationship' at all? Just the idea of it was ridiculous. I had better things to do than strike up an association with an old fool running an outmoded game store that's yearly earnings were mediocre at best. The only thing I'd give the grey-haired irrelevancy even a shred of credit for was digging up the Millennium Puzzle and dumping it on his grandson. What trajectory the Pharaoh might have taken without Yugi as his vessel wasn't worth speculating about but he sure as hell wouldn't have turned out the way he was now; the King of Games and my ultimate archrival, always forcing me to redefine the future.

A future that didn't involve drowning in his garish vault.

"Tch."

Thanks to that inane tangent my count might have been off by a few seconds but that didn't change the fact that Different Dimension Dragon should have been back by now.

It had taken seventy three seconds to collect the ladle and come back and a slightly longer ninety one to get rid of Isis and return. By my estimate over two minutes had already elapsed. Something was keeping it - taxing us seconds that we couldn't afford to lose. The Dark Magician Girl would have to move damn quickly to make up the lost time.

"It's your turn next so get ready." I turned to her with narrowed eyes, spelling out just how fast she'd need to mount my Dragon once it was back. My life was going to depend on it. "We don't have time to waste dawdling."

She stared down at the water and frowned, her bottom lip jutting out slightly as she pouted and raised her eyes back to mine. "No." Her monosyllabic reply was short and simple as she shook her head, her shock of hair throwing water droplets off in every direction.

"What?" I snapped. The cold water rising up my chest did nothing to curb a flash of hot irritation at her bold refusal. She defiantly lifted up her chin to keep her head as far above the rapids as possible while I glared at her.

"The water's rising too quickly." She argued, raising her voice to be heard over Torrential Tribute. "Even if it takes me away your Ka won't make it back in time for you! I'm not leaving you behind." She decided, stubbornly squaring her shoulders at me in a useless show of resolve. "The Pharaoh will save us! Until then I'm staying here to protect you."

I scoffed at the ridiculous idea. I didn't need Atem to bail me out of yet another preposterous situation. Plus he had no idea where we were. Besides, "How do you plan on 'protecting' me?" I sneered. We could tread water for a couple more minutes but if Different Dimension Dragon didn't come back by the time the room filled to the ceiling then she wouldn't even be able keep herself from drowning, let alone me.

"I'm glad you asked." She replied with a wide grin. "I'll do it like this!" Her eyes closed in concentration and she took a deep breath, crossing her arms in front of her body and splaying her fingers as she bowed her head slightly. A bright pink light bloomed outwards from the core of her chest, forming a luminous sphere that brightened as it grew. It pushed the waters of Torrential Tribute back across the room, repelling it away from our bodies as the Magic Barrier surrounded us like a giant bubble. The display was mildly impressive but the water that parted around the bubble had nowhere else to go while sealed in this room and the resulting fluid displacement caused the water level to to elevate sharply. At best she'd bought us a few more minutes but without removing either us or the water from the vault she was just playing for time. That fact didn't seem to bother her. Instead the Dark Magician Girl exhaled and opened up her eyes, narrowing them in overacted determination like the protagonist in a low budget fantasy flick.

"You can spare me the heroics." I deadpanned. Dramatic as her little spell was it wasn't going to get us out of here. She'd be better off getting back on my dragon and saving her own skin. "You don't even know me." I noted. There was no reason for her to risk her own life in some misguided attempt at keeping me alive.

"Yes I do." She waved her hands around to sure-up her Barrier, looking about as ferocious as Mokuba on a bad day. "We've met lots of times." She contested but it was a boldfaced lie. I'd remember if that was true. "Not _me_ me. The me that's _her_." She elaborated, flinching against the obvious effort of keeping the water back as the solidity of her wall wavered for a nanosecond.

I was sure my translation was correct so either I just had a ministroke or she was babbling literal nonsense. "What are you talking about?" I grunted with disinterest.

"When the Pharaoh summons _her_ she feels what he feels." She blathered, her voice raising again as she gritted her teeth and dug deep to stabilize the walls of the bubble. "That's why I won't leave you."

"Hnh." At least half of that explanation made sense. My interest in keeping her and the rest of her cosplay companions alive was purely for Atem's sake; it made sense she'd apply that same logic to me.

I crossed my arms and turned away from the Dark Magician Girl. Her plan was semi-suicidal but at least it showed loyalty and some initiative. Whether the Pharaoh's misfit minions were reconstituted memories or actual spirits was beginning to become irrelevant. They evidently had enough independent agency to anticipate Atem's needs and act in his best interests. That was more than I could say for half of my own employees.

"Whatever." I answered. It wasn't an agreement. Once my Different Dimension Dragon made it back I'd tell it to evacuate the girl whether she wanted to go or not, but she didn't need to know that. Her ignorance was to my benefit.

Her eyes brightened and she nodded her head. "I'll keep you safe for him, for as long as it takes." A sudden surge of power fortified her Barrier as she winked at me. "Just leave it to me!"

**Andro Sphinx**

The Pharaoh's every move was swifter and more decisive than the last.

Drawn out spectacles were foolish and vulgar. I was near pleased by the calculated urgency with which he now moved his pieces about the board. While not lacking in an innate showmanship his movements were quick and efficient; a far cry from the sweeping gestures and impractical poses the Pharaoh had adopted in our previous battle while engaged in performing for Seto Kaiba.

It was a haste born of concern for the many lives now in danger.

I had not expected Torrential Tribute to catch so many of the Pharaoh's court in its maw. My trap had been set with only ensnaring Seto Kaiba or the Pharaoh in mind, yet it had been activated by an eclectic selection of the Pharaoh's allies. The development should have been a welcome surprise but instead the presence of Teleia's previous host and Mahad's apprentice in the ranks of the soon-to-drown had galvanized not only the Pharaoh's actions, but Mahad's too.

He was becoming troublesome...

No longer was my host benignly contented to remain passive while I controlled his body. With the lives of both women imminently imperiled he now contested me with new vigor, searching to seize an opportunity in which to take back his body. I could feel him waiting and watching as I moved my pawns about the board - my concentration divided between battling back the Pharaoh's game pieces and Mahad's will.

I bid myself to focus on the game before me.

My lead over the Pharaoh was comfortable and I intended for it to remain as such. Already two of my pawns had completed the board with a third waiting in the House of Horus to complete its journey the next time casting the senet sticks heralded a one, while all five of the Pharaoh's own pawns remained scattered across the Houses.

I pushed my advantage onward. With the roll of a two I bid my pawn lingering in the Twenty-third House into the Twenty-fifth, exchanging the Pharaoh's pawn resembling Seto Kaiba that had occupied that House backwards across the board.

My move had been expected. This I gleaned from Mahad's extensive familiarity with the Pharaoh and his expressions. It was signaled by a softening in the lines of his brow and the manner in which the last of the day's sunlight shone in his eyes. His next move was bold as the shake of the sticks bid him move his pawn of Shimon Muran five paces, liberating it from the House of Happiness to complete the board. Though it was the first of his pieces to clear the game my lead remained unchallenged.

"Kaiba and I have two Death Counters." He announced as his turn ended. "Adding a third would assure Anubis's victory." The Pharaoh raised his eyes up to pierce me with their heat as he attentively plucked the liberated pawn from the board and placed it to the right side of the senet set where my trap lay veiled from sight. "Why have you named possession of my body as your prize instead?" With curiosity lighting their fires his gaze simmered only more brilliantly as he branded me with it.

I saw no value in obscuring the truth. Win or lose, to the Pharaoh it would make little difference while my trap card lay unseen against the table, waiting to activate in the advent of his victory. No matter the outcome of this game his body would be mine.

"To live the life of a monster is to be but a shade of one's former self." I answered without guile, apathy dulling the distaste on my tongue as I cast the sticks and moved the pawn in my hand forward. It was an eternal fate, shared by all those whose Ka had been bound to serve. "In your body no longer would I be forced to dwell in that darkness." No longer would I be fated to a shadow-life as a drooling man-beast that could barely think, but instead be free to roam the lands once more in a true body.

The Pharaoh's countenance hardened at my words as he rolled the sticks. With the cast of a three he bid a straggling pawn resembling Mahad's apprentice from the Nineteenth House forward to the Twenty-second, aligning three pawns across the Twenty-second, Twenty-third and Twenty-forth Houses to create an impassable wall.

"Should you lose and remain in the afterlife, or triumph to return to the realm of the living, it is not my concern." I continued, striking the senet board with my pawn as I rolled a one, choosing to usher the pawn in the twenty fifth House forward into the House of Happiness instead of finally completing the path of the pawn that lingered in the House of Horus. With the House of Happiness claimed access to the final Houses in the board would be inaccessible to the Pharaoh's line of pawns waiting on the threshold. "For I will possess your body no matter which world it occupies." I concluded.

"You'll have to win first." The Pharaoh replied calmly, the corner of his lips abruptly turning upright into a sliver of a smirk. "Unless you expect to turn your defeat into victory with your face-down card." An arrogant knowingness danced in the tone of his voice.

Had he already surmised that I had altered the identity of my hidden spell as I had flipped it back down to face the table? If so there was no concern or reproach in his countenance reprimanding my deception, only bold self-assurance.

"You are unconcerned." I noted, disliking the confidence with which the Pharaoh stared into my host's eyes.

"I put my faith in Mahad." He countered mysteriously with a tone of total superiority as his hand moved a piece across the board with low and steady surety of a leopard stalking down prey. "Using senet to avoid another duel was his idea." The Pharaoh concluded with lofty assertiveness.

I felt myself grow cold in suspicion. Indeed it had been.

"It was the soundest strategy his thoughts yielded." I noted as the rolling of a five called the pawn I had moved into the House of Happiness across the board, completing its journey and elevating the score ever further in my favor. Now I had only two pieces to cross the board with, and one already sat on the cusp of doing so. I studied it, needing only to roll another one to move it the final pace. Abruptly an odd purple vapor began to rise from the pawn's base.

A similar smoke spilled out from beneath the Pharaoh's rear-most pawn, the one shaped like Isis and distantly forgotten half the board away in the Sixteenth House. With a mighty upward puff of shadowy mist the two pawns switched places in a thick burst of smoke, ushering the Pharaoh's rear pawn into the House of Horus and banishing my own pawn backwards.

"What?" Was this a trick?

"You've challenged me to play this game using magician's senet set, Andro Sphinx." The Pharaoh declared with self-satisfaction. "One enchanted with the magics of the spell Senet Switch." He posed straight-backed and placed on hand on his hip in a posture as regal as it was self-indulgent. "Each time a pawn completes the board the opposing player is permitted to swap the positions of two pieces of their choosing, so long as neither occupies a safe House."

There was no jest in his pronouncement, only a dark amusement, but how could that be so? Already three of my pieces and one of the Pharaoh's own had crossed the board without triggering such a spell; or perhaps each had and only now that it benefited him was the Pharaoh revealing as such.

With uncanny timing he next rolled a one and the priestess's newly positioned pawn emerged from the House of Horus to complete its path. "Or was Mahad not forthcoming with that detail?" The Pharaoh taunted as he gently selected the piece and moved it away from the game to stand along side the pawn of Shimon Muran.

"He was not." I answered, if only to end the boy-king's boastful goading as my next turn began.

I rolled yet another five but with the Pharaoh's line of three blockading the movement of my pawn in the Twenty-first House and that very pawn preventing the forward movement of my rear piece in the Sixteenth House there was no move to be made and my turn was forfeited.

"I have misjudged him." I observed as the Pharaoh tossed the sticks once more, already assessing that my turn was to be passed. Mahad had deceived me, of that there was no doubt.

With surety of purpose the Pharaoh moved the pawn shaped as Mahad from the Twenty-forth House into the House of Three Truths, dividing his three-man barrier. "My priests are not so easily bested." He agreed, allowing a satisfied silence to eclipse us as his turn was done. The reprieve in conversation was welcome as the division of the Pharaoh's three pawns allowed my piece in the Twenty-first House to slip into the House of Happiness with the roll of a five, but it was not fated to last. The golden shell upon the Pharaoh's arm loosed a sharp whistling sound and broke the quietude. I was pleased that the black armor mirroring it on my own arm was not inclined to making such noises, nor flash unnaturally colored light as the image of a wyrm-like beast upon a tablet of foreign scripture appeared in the air before him. The Pharaoh cast only a fleeting glance at it before nodding in approval and banishing it away. "And neither is Kaiba." He added portentously.

I felt Mahad's core fill with a gladness as the Pharaoh's eyes rose back to mine in the aftermath, now sharp with confidence. The card heralded that Seto Kaiba had begun to apply himself to the task of escaping Torrential Tribute and to my host's mind his tenacity was assurance enough that those trapped within the royal vault would not remain so for long.

Yet one remained of the priesthood's number who would not know liberation from Torrential Tribute's dismissal.

The quieter feelings of worry the magician harbored for his reluctantly-admitted friend had not been lacking since beholding the High Priest's condition, yet had been overshadowed by perturbation for his apprentice and the other priestess caught in Torrential Tribute's snare. With new reassurances for their safety he now cast his thoughts to the body that lay prone on the plinth beside us. My eyes followed for but a brief moment, yet that fleeting glance did not escape the Pharaoh.

"What is Anubis doing to Seto?" He questioned. His voice was level and calm to the onlooker but a tight upwards inflection that only Mahad's trained ear could detect betrayed the Pharaoh's concern for his High Priest. The tone reflected the magician's sheathed apprehension for the fallen High Priest as a toss of sticks yielded the Pharaoh a mere one and with it he bid Mahad's piece onward and into the House of Re-Atoum.

"I cannot claim to know my Master's will." I countered simply as I ushered my pawn forward in response. I did not delude myself into believing I was worthy of such confidences, for unlike Sphinx Teleia I knew full well how it was that the Master viewed us; as slaves and tools, undeserving of knowing his true machinations. Alone this secrecy would have undone me, and yet with Mahad's insight into the High Priest's character and his more magically-astute suspicions to combine with my own I had reached an estimation of the situation that I believed to be near accurate.

"Indulge me." The Pharaoh replied shortly, his eyes meeting mine across the battlefield of the senet board.

I had no need to do so, but once the Pharaoh was my host some limited degree of co-existence would be unavoidable. I would offer him my insight, if only to buy his amicability in the meanwhile.

"Your High Priest sought to unbind the Ka of the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon from Seto Kaiba." I volunteered, the knowledge glimpsed through the lens of Mahad's speculations. The ties binding those whose love could survive time and death were not so easily cut. The High Priest's ritual had likely only wounded the Ka but damaged or destroyed outright, it mattered not, the High Priest's actions had afforded my Master a new opportunity to return to power. "Yet the souls of he and Seto Kaiba are inextricable. What becomes of one also afflicts the other." I summarized without care. "Without the dragon's protection my Master has run amok since claiming the High Priest's body in your throne room, consuming his Ba to fuel his return to form."

The Pharaoh's brow coiled, creasing at its center in consternation. The slight gritting of his teeth and firmness of his mouth betrayed him as he demanded "And Kaiba?"

This question I could not answer. Having watched he and the Pharaoh frolic at length I had observed that Seto Kaiba continued on oblivious, sporting a newfound resistance to my Master's corruption. I did not know its origin nor its nature, but something unknown was working in his favor to hold it at bay.

"His fate shall be the same." I noted regardless, sure of this fact. "It is only a matter of time."

**Yugi**

Atem and I had faced off against Kaiba and his Blue-Eyes White Dragons way too many times, but I'd never seen one act this wild before.

Dark spit had flown from its mouth as it snarled in rage at Kaiba's evaporation. He'd seemed fine after taking the hit and I was glad for that, but without him that left me all alone to deal with with his dragon and I wasn't sure where to start. Dueling against Kaiba and his monsters had always been Atem's specialty, not mine.

With Kaiba gone Blue-Eyes' head had swiped back in my direction and gnashed its jaws at me from the other side of the doorway.

It eerily drifted through outer space to get closer to the entrance to the space station and the knife jutting out of its chest flashed as the starlight reflected in its handle. A thick plume of the same black goo that Anubis had made in KaibaCorp Duel Dome's bled out from around the blade, scattering weightless droplets of ooze along behind Blue-Eyes' body. From a distance it looked really bad. Short tendrils of sludge were pushing their way between Blue-Eyes' scales to waggle in the air around the injury like invading black worms and a thin stream of sludge was now dribbling out from between the dragon's teeth.

I had to back away from them as Blue-Eyes lunged for the opening, thrashing its neck through the doorway as it tried to bite me. Luckily its body was too large to push through, but now that it had a goal Blue-Eyes was just as single-minded as Kaiba himself was. With a snarl it withdrew its neck and changed tactics. Abruptly the hallway warped and tilted as Blue-Eyes' tail slammed into it, making me jump as the section of hallway next to me buckled at the impact with a huge metallic screech. The whole walkway twisted and bent inwards as Blue Eyes assaulted it again, its claws punching holes through the walls from the other side. Three talons lodged themselves into the metal hallways and pulled downwards, carving deep gashes into it and making the space station rip open like tissue paper in Kame Game's gift wrapping.

It was a relief when it paused attacking, until-

"GaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrooooooooooooOOUUUUUU!"

"Ah!" I almost slipped over as Blue-Eyes roared and set whole place quaking.

The halogen lights lining the walk way flashed as if they were caught in a power surge and what was left of the ancient Egyptian door that Blue-Eyes had blasted toppled over and splintered into pieces as it hit the floor. The shards of the gilded wood sank into a puddle of thick black sludge pooling around the door's threshold and completely disappeared.

I swallowed thickly as everything shook and backed away down the hallway towards Yami's observation deck, feeling my way along the wall and grabbing onto some of the door handles for support as I passed.

"What did you do?" Shouted a familiar voice, a note of panic making him sound gruffer and higher-pitched than before as the little Kaiba leaned out of his room and glared at me.

"Yugi-" Yami added from his doorway, sounding a lot calmer than Seto but looking just as tense as he braced himself against the frame, "What happened?"

"I found the 'guardian'." I confirmed, nodding at Yami to confirm our suspicions as Blue-Eyes' roar reverberated around us again. "It's a Blue-Eyes, but there's something wrong with it."

"I already told you that." The mini Kaiba muttered from the sidelines testily. "It's sick." He added, holding the sleeve of his pajamas to his mouth to stifle a cough of his own.

"I don't think so." I disagreed as I slowly neared them, instantly earning a chilly glare from Seto as I grabbed onto his door to stop myself from falling over. It wasn't as icy as the real Kaiba's yet but was still pretty cold. "I think it's hurt. There's something stuck in its chest." I explained, catching my balance and watching as his expression thawed to look doubtful but curious. "I couldn't pull it out, but it looks like that's what's hurting it."

"What kind of 'something'?" Yami questioned with a wary narrowing of his eyes as Seto snapped "What!", getting mad just as quickly as the real Kaiba could as he crossed his arms over his chest and pulled a face that I think was supposed to look tough. "No one touches my dragons." He loudly announced over Blue-Eyes' snarls, sounding every bit as possessive of them as his older self was.

Yami expression turned suspicious and he stared down at Seto for a long second before his eyes quickly darted upwards as the shadow of something behind the broody little Kaiba moved in my peripheral vision.

"Seto, what's going on?" A small shaggy-haired Mokuba asked from behind his brother's back, holding the edge of a thin blanket that trailed behind him across the floor. He looked pale and anxious as he tentatively peaked around his older brother's body as if Seto was a human shield, but at this age Kaiba was too short and thin to hide behind completely.

The hoarse question commanded Seto's attention instantly as he turned away from Yami and I like we didn't exist anymore and there wasn't a mad dragon howling up a storm in the background.

"Nothing, I just needed the washroom." Kaiba smoothly lied to the tiny memory-version of Mokuba hanging behind him in a set of baggy bed clothes, briefly pulling his mouth into a slight smile. His reassuring act was pretty good as he nonchalantly rolled his shoulders in a light shrug like everything was fine before quickly changing the subject. "Did I wake you?" He pressed, looking over the mini Mokuba carefully with a deep blue gaze as the younger Kaiba brother sleepily rubbed his eyes and shivered in the cold room.

"Nuh-uh." The little Mokuba replied, shaking his head of messy hair back and forth. Even though the colors were different Kaiba and Mokuba had the same big gloomy eyes as kids. Mokuba's blinked owlishly before glancing to his brother in tired confusion. "Who are you talking to?"

"No one, Mokie." Seto replied, his voice softer than I was used as he gently pried the edge of the blanket out of Mokuba's miniature hand and pulled it around his little brother's shoulders.

"Hmmmn" The tiny Mokuba hummed back noncommittally. He pulled a face and leaned to the side subtly like he was trying to sneak a glance passed his older brother into the hallway while Seto fussed with the comforter. With a stifled yawn he stared out of the door bleary-eyed but looked right through me. I guess he couldn't see me; not that Seto was surprised. He seemed to be banking on that.

"Everything's okay." The older Kaiba brother added absently, all of his attention concentrated on his task as he secured the blanket in place. Mokuba was so tiny that Seto managed to wrap it all the way around his body three times before the younger Kaiba gave up trying to see through the door. By the time he refocused on Seto he had completely cocooned him in the sheet. Mokuba fidgeted self-consciously as the mini Kaiba stepped back to appraise his work. Apparently it passed inspection, or that was the impression I got as Seto nodded to himself and put his hands on Mokuba's shoulders, slowly steering him around to face in the direction of their beds.

"It's cold. Go back to bed."

His tone firmed up as he said that, losing its softness and adding the hard edge that had ended up becoming Kaiba's default speaking voice as a teenager. Apparently it meant 'no arguing' because Mokuba eyed him reluctantly and hesitated for just a second before nodding.

"Okay." The younger Kaiba agreed and beginning to shuffle away back into the depths of the room.

"You should go too." I told Seto as he watched Mokuba make his way back to the bed they'd been sharing. "Close the door and stay inside" I added. I really hoped that would be enough to protect the two of them from the rampaging Blue-Eyes. On the other side of the hallway there was now only space littered with the rubble of doors gliding around through the vacuum. I didn't know if the memories that had been inside were safe or not but I'd never forgive myself if I let something happen to these two.

"Why?" the little Kaiba asked tersely, staring back at me with a sharp curiosity.

I wouldn't put being rebellious just for the sake of it passed Kaiba at any age, but something in his tone made me think the question was genuine. "It's not safe out here." I offered, confused by needing to explain that. Seto could clearly hear the roaring and already knew something was up.

"As if." Seto muttered, "Don't be dumb. Blue-Eyes won't hurt me." He added boredly, staring me up at me as if that was obvious information. "I'll prove it."

"Woah! Not happening." I exclaimed, not expecting it as Seto pushed me aside and defiantly stepped out of his room into the corridor. He crossed his arms and scowled at me as I dodged in front of him and threw my arms out to stop him from going any further down the hallway.

"Get out of my way." He demanded, puffing his chest out and straightening his back as he leaned up, bringing his face as close to mine as possible and locking his eyes onto mine with an intensity that was vaguely uncomfortable.

"Don't be foolish." Yami reprimanded sternly from behind us, his body tensed in the doorway to the observation deck as he watched.

"That's not a good idea." I added, not enjoying the sudden staring match. At this age Seto had seemed so much more reasonable than our Kaiba but the look of crazy tunnel vision on his face was exactly the same as the one his older self had worn every time he'd faced off against Yami in a duel. I'd never understand how Atem found it so thrilling and not at all creepy.

"It attacked Kaiba – uh, the real Kaiba." I explained, hoping to deter the look.

"You saw the true Kaiba?" Yami questioned and I nodded back, not taking my eyes off of Seto's point blank stare for even a second. It was like we were playing an unspoken game and the first one to look away would lose.

"Just for a minute. He thought he was having a dream." I explained.

"Yeah, and we're not doing lunch. Just so you know." Seto quipped as he looked for a way around me. I think he was trying to be mean but his voice wasn't deep or harsh enough yet.

"Wait…"

That's what I'd said to the _real_ Kaiba.

"How do you know I said that?" I asked softly. I didn't mean to sound suspicious but something in my tone caught Yami's attention. In the corner of my eye I saw his eyebrows jump up in surprise as the little Kaiba suddenly hesitated and shifted uncomfortably in front of us.

How could Seto know what I'd said to Kaiba? He hadn't been there.

"Unless..."

None of the other versions of Kaiba in here had interacted with me and none of them had deviated from the original memory but this little Seto had recognized me right from the start. He could even leave his room...

I could see it in the thoughtful narrowing of his eyes as Yami drew the same conclusion as me, like we were still sharing one mind. He nodded to me in agreement and we both leveled our eyes on the little Kaiba as he crossed his arms over his chest and hitched up his shoulders like he was expecting to be shouted at.

"You're not a memory at all." Yami announced, pausing to let Seto reply and only receiving a sullen silence in response.

I didn't know exactly what this mini Kaiba was and I guessed that Yami didn't either, but that surly reaction confirmed it. He was definitely something else.


	34. Chapter 34

**Yugi**

"Why didn't you tell us that from the beginning?" Yami questioned with a serious expression.

"Why would I?" Kaiba bit back, sounding defensive and, well, childlike. "We're not friends." He insisted, his words becoming louder and quicker as his arm lashed forward to point at Yami in accusation, "You don't even like me."

"How can you tha-"

"- You dueled him, and then you left, and you both acted like I didn't even exist. It should have been my duel! You didn't think I'd win!" He concluded angrily before turning to me and glared. "And you never even tried to be my friend." I didn't break his eye contact because I got the impression that doing so was a sign of weakness to him but I really wanted to look away as Seto's big blue eyes glowered up at me with so much hurt. "You think bullying me into one lunch fixes that?" He demanded hotly before swiping his head to the side like he didn't want to look at us anymore.

Hearing all that made me feel like I'd swallowed a pebble and it hadn't finished making its way down my throat yet. Even Yami shifted his weight between his feet uneasily. If we were still sharing a body he'd probably see this as his cue to retreat back inside of the Millennium Puzzle and let me tidy things up. Playing that role was something I'd always been happy to do, but now I wondered how it looked to Kaiba to always see us switch back after the final turn in a duel had been played regardless of the state it left him in. As resistant to sharing his thoughts as he was I doubted I'd ever know. This little Kaiba on the other hand sure was a lot more vocal about his feelings; the way his older self only got in the middle of a duel when he and Atem could shout at each other over a handful of cards. It was easy to get hung up on them, on how honest and intense his anger with us was, but that wasn't all. The way he was talking and the things he was saying, it made it sound like- "Kaiba. Uh, Seto." I corrected as I reached out to him, "Do you actually _want_ friends?" That question sounded lame, even to me, but I had to check. Kaiba had spent so long dumping on the idea and insisting that friendship was a weakness... All this time, had he been protesting so hard because it was something he wanted deep down?

With an irritated sigh all of the rage-filled tension fell of off the little Kaiba's shoulders and suddenly he just looked so small and defensive as he wrapped his arms tightly over his chest.

"You said you were sorry. It's not like I didn't hear." Seto told the wall he was now staring at, changing the topic back to what I'd said to the real Kaiba so abruptly it took me a moment to catch up. "But 'sorry' is just a word. It doesn't change anything." He scowled. "It can't turn back time, or bring back dead people."

"I know." I admitted quietly. If it could half of the rooms in the corridor outside wouldn't exist.

I knew Kaiba had some issues to work out, but for someone so narrowly focused on the future he was a lot more haunted by the past than he'd ever let on. Everything behind those doors was the proof. Was that why he couldn't let Atem go? Why he'd risked everything just to see him again? To stop the Pharaoh from becoming another room behind a door locked away forever in mint condition like the Duel Monsters cards in his vault?

The thought of that was so sad.

Kaiba might not like it much or think it counted for anything but I really was sorry for him.

We stood in a solemn silence that didn't feel right to break as Seto continued glaring icily at the wall opposite. Yami's head perked up in the lull to glance ahead.

"Do you hear that?" He questioned suspiciously.

"Huh?" Hear what? I couldn't hear anything. Seto continued sulking in font of me as I realized that was exactly Yami's point. It had gone quiet. I couldn't hear Blue-Eyes at all anymore and the tremors of the hallway had eased to only a weak rumble. Dark sludge hung from the ceiling in stringy tendrils that dripped and splattered into wet puddles on the floor. They made a sound similar to a leaking faucet that vaguely made me need the washroom, but other than that there was no noise to be heard. That couldn't be good. Not after seeing how mad Blue-Eyes was.

I opened my mouth to question it. "What happened to -" and then got an answer that I didn't really want.

"Gnnnnnnnnaaaa." With a guttural snarl a sharp noise cut through the air. "Pzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-"

Electrical sparks and harsh light illuminated the corridor, sending snapping electrical shocks down the hallway. I covered my head with my arm as the light fixture overhead exploded with a loud pop, raining sharp shards of glass over our heads. Seto winced and cringed as the edge of one nicked his cheek and lifted his hand to the scrape as it began to well with blood.

"-Zzzzzzzzzzt!"

With a hiss of raw energy the attack released and a massive blast of hot white lightning split the end of the hallway apart.

"Run!" I shouted as the strike came bounding down the space station. The metallic walls tore open at the impact, dismantling as the attack ripped right through them. The damage cut open a massive fissure in the floor that lanced down the walkway towards us, splitting between our feet. Seto sprang towards the door mini-Mokuba had just closed but fumbled the handle in wide-eyed panic. I pulled him back by the waist as the metal beneath us shrieked and cracked open to swallow us. "Ah!" My shout was joined by one of Seto's own as I managed to back-pedal us away from the void of space.

"Here!" Yami commanded with a shout from behind my back, beckoning me into his control room with a sharp wave of his hand.

"Kaiba, come on." I pulled on him again as he struggled against me frantically and tried to get back to Mokuba's door before freezing up like a deer in the headlights as the ball of lightning careened towards him. "Seto!" I tried again, switching names to see if that would snap him out of it but he didn't move. His pupils shrank as he went completely still, like he couldn't move.

I guess it was time to pay him back for earlier.

I'd never really been in a position to carry any of my friends before but I'd seen Joey and Tristan do it plenty of times. Seto was so thin I could feel his ribs through his clothes as I placed one hand on his back and hooked my arm under his knees to haul him up into my arms. He went completely rigid as I sprinted with him back toward the observation deck, sliding through the doorway to see Yami jab a button at the side of the threshold that made the door slide shut behind us with a soft hiss.

"Get back from the door." Yami cautioned. We backed away from it just in time as Blue-Eyes' attack slammed into the surface, making the smooth planes of the door punch inwards towards us with a loud bang that made Seto flinch and snatch at my wrist with a grip so strong that it hurt.

"It's okay." I soothed as I lowered him back down to the floor. He clutched onto me desperately for another second, making my hand start to feel slightly numb until his feet touched the floor. Then his body jarred into action and he thrashed out of my hold. Seto may have been half his age but he already had Kaiba's pridefulness. It asserted itself as he stepped away from me quickly and threw me a sharp glare as if to prove he'd never been frightened in the first place. Grown up Kaiba's defensiveness could get kinda threatening but at this age it just made him look even younger. Like a kid trying to act like an adult without really pulling it off. I smiled tightly at the performance as the sound of something raging on the other side of the door became clearer and closer.

"Here it comes." Yami noted, widening up his footing like he was going to duel the dragon into submission as what remained of the door to the observation deck was cleaved in half by the heavy strike of a sludge-covered white talon. The corridor behind it was decimated. I glimpsed just a disconnected mess of doors floating around in the vacuum of space as Blue-Eyes forced its head and body through the opening, drooling black goo all over the place as it bled out across the control room floor. The muscles in my legs tensed up. I was ready to pick Seto up again and run as Blue-Eyes' lower jaw swung open so wide it looked like it had dislocated, or unhinged.

"Get ready, Yugi." Atem warned from my side without looking away from the oozing dragon.

"Right." I nodded back, my heart pounding in anticipation of another ear-splitting roar or white lightning attack as the Blue-Eyes reared up and arched its neck. Its head bared down over us.

"Mwahahahaha ha ha ha!" A booming laughter blasted out of its throat, one most definitely foreign to the normal vocalizations of Kaiba's dragons. It bounced around the walls of the observation deck so loud it was almost deafening.

"This voice-" I began, recognizing it instantly as I pressed my hands against my ears to block it out, "-it's"

"Anubis." Yami finished for me. He clenched his fists while staring the dragon down with gritted teeth.

"I thank you, mortal." The sorcerer's voice mocked, echoing up and out of Blue-Eyes' throat with a wave of sludge as the dragon's swung towards me. "No sooner does the well of the High Priest's Ba run dry than you unlock the door to Seto Kaiba's." he boasted with a dark pleasure, "Devouring his soul from the inside out is a fate befitting the loathsome maggot!"

Blue-Eyes' eyes narrowed and nostrils flared in outrage as more stinking sludge spilled out of its mouth and dribbled down its neck. It flexed its claws until the layer of black gunge coating them began to bubble and sizzle. Blue-Eyes snarled furiously and then groaned in pain and a stomach-turning smell of burning flesh and rotten meat made Seto and I gag as it filled the room. He took a step forward towards the dragon and smothered his nose with the sleeve of his pajamas. "Blue-Eyes!" He shouted, watching Blue-Eyes with a fiercely protective expression as the monster's body twitched, only to have every muck-covered limb it tried to move begin smoking and sizzling in reprimand. "Hang on!" His thin chest caught on Yami's hand as he swiped it in front of him to prevent Seto from getting closer. "Move!" Seto barked, his angry gaze flashing up the outstretched arm to Yami's face. His expression morphed into surprise as he looked up to see Yami was just as angry as he was and settled a little. Relief shined brightly in his big gloomy eyes as his stance softened up.

"Whatever you're planning we've beaten you before Anubis, and we can do it again." Yami firmly announced.

With another round of crazed laughter Blue-Eyes threw its head up in the air and loosed a deep, agonized roar. The tendrils of ooze swarming the knife in the dragon's chest abruptly burst upwards, coiling together and twisting into one thick black column that curved and grew, gaining shape and detail to become-

"Grrrrr!" Yami grunted, using his arm to usher Seto more completely behind him as the mini Kaiba stared in shock at the freshly grown Blue-Eyes White Dragon head that jutted out next to the original. The white counterpart lowered its neck to hang defeated as the gross second head's pitch black scales dripped and finished forming. Its maw quirked awkwardly up into an evil sneer as it took control of the dragon's body with a threatening lash of its tail.

" _You_ have beaten nothing." Anubis's voice loudly taunted Yami from the new head as the old one bowed and closed its eyes. "I have already once beheld the Pharaoh in his afterlife." He declared, baring his dragon-headed teeth at us. "And _you_ are not he."

Yami's eyebrows sharply turned downwards as his eyes narrowed. "Perhaps not." He declared, straightening his back and widening his stance like he was about to play a card. "But I'm close enough to defeat the likes of you." Seto had to duck under his arm not to be accidentally struck as Yami swiped it out to his side. "Dark Magician!" he called out, "I summon you!"

A massive purple rune covered the floor as the sharp peak of the Dark Magician's hat emerged from a bright spot in the very middle. The Dark Magician rose up from the sigil with his arms crossed over his chest and then twirled his staff as the burst of light around him faded leaving him levitating in front of us.

Anubis's Blue-Eyes head narrowed its eyes, the shine across them shifting slightly as the eyeball rolled in its socket to sharply move between the Dark Magician and Yami's empty hand and then back again. I didn't like having anything in common with Anubis but how Yami had summoned in the Dark Magician without a card or Duel Disk confused me just as much as him. It's like he'd called the monster out of thin air.

"Ha!" Seto's wonky grin spread across his face as he confidently tilted his head. "This whole room is one giant projection suite. You really think you'll beat a holographic Pharaoh here?" He boasted from behind Yami. "You don't stand a chance!"

The weird smirk that Anubis had pulled the dragon's face into fell into an evil glower. "Insolent whelp. Your pathetic man-made magic is no match for my own." he growled from the back of its throat before rearing back onto Blue-Eyes' hind legs and threateningly flapping its wings with enough concussive force to almost knock us to the floor. "Behold, the spiritual energy of every dark memory that has lain dormant within the priest's soul!" The dagger pulsed as the wound in Blue-Eye's chest burst open and gushed like a fire hydrant. Thick black blood poured out of it, leaking down the rest of the dragon's body and sliding across its scales to cover everywhere that had survived unstained. The dragon's original head moaned one last time as the living tar crept up its neck and crawled forward until its snout was completely covered. I took a step backwards and felt a bead of sweat drip down from my hairline as Kaiba's whole monster was turned from white to black.

I hoped Yami had a plan.

"With the Soul Room's protector under my command I am invincible!" Anubis proclaimed. "Now, you shall die!" The malevolence in the statement sent a chill down my spine as the dripping dragon lurched towards us with another flex of its wet wings.

"Hey!" Seto barked back, his voice hitching as he yelled to be heard over Anubis. "Blue-Eyes is mine!"

"Kaiba-" I began. I didn't really know how to end my sentence but now really wasn't the time for one of his overly-possessive Blue-Eyes White Dragon speeches. I couldn't tell if he'd heard and just ignored me or if he hadn't cared enough to listen in the first place but before I could figure it out he dodged forward from behind Yami and darted across the room towards Blue-Eyes.

"Stop! What are you doing?" Yami shouted, trying to catch onto him but he ducked Yami's arm and sidestepped around me. The ends of Yami's fingers managed to snag one of Seto's pajama sleeves before the mini Kaiba snatched it out of his grip and continued towards his monster. Man, he was really quick for a little kid! "Getting rid of whatever _that_ is." He quipped back when he was far enough away not to get caught by either of us, waving his arm out to point at the knife jutting out of Blue-Eyes' chest as it disgorged more and more black slime.

"No wait, it's dangerous!" I called out, starting after him. He was going to get himself hurt!

"I don't care!" He argued, throwing his words at us over his shoulder as he sprinted headlong towards the dragon.

"Mwahaha!" The room echoed with Anubis's evil laugh as both dragon heads cackled with amusement. "I welcome you to try, runt." They boomed in stereo.

"Shut up!" Seto snapped back. "Blue-Eyes got rid of you once! It'll do it again!" It had been the special ability of the Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon that had banished Anubis the last time but clearly Seto wasn't too worried about the specifics. There was zero doubt in his face as he crouched down, gathering his legs underneath him and defiantly glared up at the knife hilt. He sized it up with a look of determination, completely focused on it.

"I just gotta-" With a huge lunge he launched himself upwards into the dragon's chest with a full-body leap "-pull it out!". My shoes squeaked against the floor as I pulled to a stop, watching anxiously as my heart tried to beat out of my chest. This little Seto didn't yet have Kaiba's height or strength but he made up for it with a raw scrappy athleticism that reminded me of Joey. A burst of crazy energy propelled his jump high enough to reach the hilt as it stuck out of Blue-Eyes' torso and he gripped onto the dagger with both hands as the dragon roared in fury, sending a thick wave of black blood rushing out of the wound to spill down the monster's black body. With a deep snarl one of the dark Blue-Eyes heads turned on Kaiba, angling towards his body while opening its jaws wide. It was going to eat him!

"Oh no you don't!" I declared. I wasn't going to let anything happen to Seto and Mokuba's Blue-Eyes White Dragon card shared that sentiment. I pulled it out of my pocket as I felt it begin to warm and brandished it at the hungry head. With a pulse of its light the oozing face caved in and then burst apart like a blister, splattering harmlessly over Seto's pajamas.

"Gross!" Seto cringed and sneered, then doubled down on the dagger, firming up his grip and planting his bare teeth on either side of Blue-Eyes chest. He yanked back on it with a flex of his legs, once, and then twice, each pull making more sludge pour out of the injury. The new wave of goo slopped across the dragon's black body, pulling together where the head I'd just destroyed had been to form a new nub that quickly began slowly reforming into a long, gangly replacement.

"This is bad." I muttered. If Anubis could regenerate the dragon's heads then even with Mokuba's Blue-Eyes card as a defense eventually one of them was going to manage to land a blow, and Seto was so small. We needed a better strategy - quickly. "Seto, let go, let's think about this." I told him sternly, glancing to the mini Kaiba in question and already knowing he wasn't going to obey me as his shoulders tensed under his bed shirt. With a gritting of his jaw Seto's knuckles turned white and he gripped onto the dagger's hilt so hard that I could see the muscles in his arms quake.

"No way!" He bit back venomously. "No gross freak is taking Blue-Eyes away from me!"

My pulse was going a mile a minute as I glanced back to Yami for backup. Even if it was against his wishes Kaiba was just a kid here, and he was going to get hurt if I didn't do something. It was like Yami read my mind as he nodded back, silently telling me to do what had to be done. The gesture emboldened me with his confidence. Seto glared at me, the rage in his eyes so strong it was as if I was just as much of a bad guy as Anubis was as I squeaked and ducked under a swipe from one of Blue-Eyes' dark claws and ran to get close enough to him to reach up to his body.

"Sorry, but we need to-" I didn't get to finish that because as soon as I was near enough Seto tilted his body as it hung from the knife and kicked me square in the stomach. "Owch!" That hurt. I winced and took a step back as his leg recoiled again ready for a second strike. His eyes narrowed on me.

"Leave me alone, Yugi." He hissed. The threat in his tone was clear; he'd fight me on this as hard as he had to to stop me from pulling him away from his dragon. At this age I was pretty sure I could physically overpower him if I just got in range but he obviously had no intention of letting me get close enough to try. That left only one other way to reach him.

"I know Blue-Eyes matters a lot to you-" I called out, carefully thinking over what I wanted to say as I tried appealing to his common sense, but Kaiba's mind worked on a logic all of his own. I needed to pick the right words.

"-You don't know anything!" Seto shouted.

"-But we need to back off and come up with a plan." I insisted without pausing, staring the mini Kaiba down, trying to communicate my will through my eyes just like Atem would have done.

He glared at me defiantly before a snap from Blue-Eyes' remaining head distracted him. He leaned away from it's gnashing teeth just in time to miss being bitten down on but lost his footing against the monster's torso and yelped in surprise as he swung from the dagger like a human pendulum. The motion did nothing to deter Blue-Eyes. On the next forward swing the head lunged forward, it's thick neck uncoiling like a snake to strike.

"Watch ou-"

"Khroooooooooom"

"Pltchhhhhh!"

Just in time a Dark Magic Attack smacked into the head, making it explode into a sloppy stump on impact. I turned back to Yami and the Dark Magician, nodding thankfully at the sight of both Duel Monster and duelist in their battle poses.

"Nice save." I thanked, relief making the words come out as a breathless sigh that the Dark Magician saluted with two fingers against his forehead before twirling his staff and returning his attention to Seto.

"Stop doing that!" Seto roared, his pupils shrinking in sudden outrage as he glared back at us, his feet slipping off the surface of Blue-Eyes sludge-coated chest.

"Doing what?" I asked, so confused by the powerful anger he was now aiming our way.

"Helping!" He yelled, holding on with a death grip as Blue-Eyes' semi-headless body thrashed, it's arms not quite bendable or long enough to reach Seto as he hung from the middle of its chest. "Acting like you're my friends!"

"I am your friend. We both are." I frowned, wondering why this topic kept coming up again and again. I'd thought that if Kaiba wouldn't accept words then actions would prove it to him instead, but that wasn't the case. Why couldn't he accept my friendship?

"No, you're not." He sneered back at us.

The head that I'd destroyed with Mokuba's Blue-Eyes card quickly finished regenerating and instantly turned on Seto's back before a second blast from the Dark Magician reduced it to a dripping mess once again. With both heads temporarily reduced to stumps we seemed to be 'winning' this, kinda, but beside me Yami's teeth clenched again at Seto's bare faced denial. Even without being connected I could feel his patience start to wear thin as he locked eyes with Seto. "Stubborn fool." Yami growled with an exasperation that sounded more than a little aggravated. "He hears nothing over his own rage."

"I don't think he's angry." I noted. Yami was talking about him like he would our Kaiba, but that wasn't really the case. This wasn't the duelist he knew – not yet anyway. Right now he was just a sad little kid. "And I don't really think this is about Blue-Eyes..." He raised and eyebrow at my observation, inviting me to explain with just a look. "Not really." I added, studying Seto carefully while thinking on memories I'd witnessed. Something bigger than Anubis taking control of his dragon was going on here.

"Shut up, Yugi!" Seto's hasty barked confirmed it as he snarled back at me. "You don't know anything!"

"Kaiba-"

"- It's okay. I've got this." It felt weird to silence Yami, but with just those words he closed his mouth instantly and glanced back to me, appraising me carefully before nodding with confidence and waiting for me to make my move. I hoped it was the right one. No, I knew it was the right one. After everything I'd seen in this place I was sure of it.

I took a step forward. "I understand why you don't believe me" I began, speaking from the heart, "and after we get out of here there's going to be lots of time for me to prove it to you. " Something in Seto's eyes shifted as he watched me, like he was actually interested in what I had to say. That was encouraging. "But you have to let go right now." I concluded, staring at him meaningfully.

"Tch! You don't understand anything about me." He countered quietly. His expression suddenly closed off and the little flare of curiosity in his eyes dulled as he turned back to the hilt he was hanging onto and leaned into his dragon's chest.

"I think I do!" I wasn't giving up! Not now and not ever again. I owed Kaiba that. When Atem passed on he'd left me behind, trusting in me to continue on in his place. It wasn't something we'd ever talked about but I'd seen it in his warm expression, in every confident line of his body as he'd stood on the threshold to the next world and given us his final thumbs up. He'd had no regrets, no doubts, because I was going to handle it for him. As Atem's rival Kaiba was a part of that too. He always had been. I just hadn't realized it soon enough. I had to make this work, for all of us.

"No you don't, or you'd never tell me to let go." Seto hissed, shuddering a little as the mud oozing from Blue-Eyes body dribbled onto his arms and coated his hands to match his muddy feet. I didn't know exactly what this soul projection was, but if it got taken over like Blue-Eyes clearly had been then it wasn't going to be good.

"You've lost a lot of things-" I pressed, trying to sound sure and not desperate, even as I watched blackness soak into the fabric of his night clothes. He'd see panic as being weak, but that didn't change the fact that my words were sincere. Kaiba really had lost a lot - more than the obvious stuff. It wasn't just his parents, or his home. I now understood that it was deeper than that. It was any sense of safety or trust, his belief in others and now even Atem... "-and you won't let Blue-Eyes be another." I realized. It was no wonder he wasn't going to let go. "I understand all of that. I really do." The pieces to a whole new puzzle began to fall into place as Seto watched me, the focus on his face so intense it was like I was Atem. "But it's okay to _let go_." I emphasized, really looking at him and seeing the way his eyes began to water before his face filled with shame. "Even if it makes you sad."

"No it's not!" He countered, sounding defensive as his breath hitching a little as his tone changed. "I don't let things go!" He snatched his head away, a little of his ever-reliable anger seeping back into his tone as he began to rant, "It's stupid! It doesn't help and I don't like it. I won't do it!"

"No one does, but it's really important." I consoled, hating to see a friend so upset but knowing that he needed to hear this. "Letting go and being sad; they're a part of moving on." A really big part too. How could Kaiba ever expect to stride into his future with all of this dragging him down like an anchor. "Isn't that what you've always wanted?" I gently pressed, trying to appeal to that stalwart self-proclaimed goal.

"I won't! I don't have to. I'll prove it!" He declared venomously, shifting his weight to try yanking out the dagger in Blue-Eyes chest again with a fresh burst of irate energy. He heaved on the hilt in raw heart-felt fury, channeling his anger with the same expert ferocity that Kaiba used to fuel his dueling and actually managing to pull the hilt out an inch. A burst of sludge spewed out from around the weapon to coat his hands and chest and Seto spluttered as a few fat drops landed on his face. His rage faded away just as quickly as he'd called it to him and with a final weak tug he slumped his forehead towards his dragon's wet chest, looking defeated and exhausted. "If I starting letting stuff go then _he'll_ really be gone." He muttered quietly.

"Atem wouldn't want you to think like that." I countered and shook my head at the thought, instantly knowing who _'he'_ was. How could I not? With Kaiba everything was always about the Pharaoh. "He's... passed on to a better place." I consoled and Kaiba's sad eyes glowered at me doubtfully for saying that. "To where he's supposed to be." I clarified. "He'd want you to do the same, I'm sure of it."

"Who cares what he wants." Seto tiredly bit back as the sludge began to churn around him. "He left. He went away. He didn't care."

Yami's fists clenched in my peripheral vision at that accusation and his expression turned tight and pinched like he'd tasted something bitter as Seto wilfully ignored all evidence to the contrary.

"That's not true." I argued on his behalf before softening my voice. "The Pharaoh knew that it was okay to leave, because it doesn't matter where he goes, you'll always have his friendship." Seto's increasingly despondent gaze skittered across my face, like he was analyzing it for proof that I was lying. "And mine too." I added firmly. I guess he didn't find any as his lips subtly pulled downwards like Mokuba's used to do right before he started crying. "He trusted you to understand that." I gently concluded, the words making Seto's eyes turn glassy and forcing him to break eye contact with me so he could look away again.

"Yeah right." He huffed. There was an upset quaver in his words. 'Friendship' is just another stupid word. Like 'sorry'."

"Maybe it is." I quietly agreed before gathering up all of my determination and making one last declaration. "But I'll make it more than a word, I promise. And I always keep a promise to a friend!"

"But..." Seto deflated, the will to fight leaving his body and face until only a dejected looking little kid was left behind. He slowly raised his eyes up to meet mine, looking so small and lost. "What do I do without him?"

His question struck at my heart painfully. I'd wondered the same thing. I'd wondered it for weeks and then months after Atem left. I still wondered it now. It was like a low hum at the back of my brain that the happy noises of daily life drowned out while the sun was up, but kept me up at night when things got quiet in my bedroom. Sometimes when my eyes were closed I'd swear that if I opened them up Atem would be right there, perched on my bed looking pensive like always, but he never was. I was glad for that; for him being more than just a ghost bound to me and the Puzzle, but I couldn't ignore those moments. They were signs that I was still finding my way through, I realized, just like Kaiba was. I didn't have an answer for this Seto, and I wasn't going to lie just to make things better.

"We'll figure it out. Both of us." I answered truthfully as my voice turned sterner than usual. I hadn't meant it to, but I really sounded like Atem as it happened. That seemed appropriate. "Kaiba, it's going to be okay..." I added, reaching up to him again as his hopeless expression morphed into a pure wet-eyed doubt that his adult self would never show the world. "But you have to let go." I gently insisted.

"I don't like losing." He complained, his tired tone reluctantly easing up to become almost a whine as his tight grip on the dagger started to slacken.

"I know."

I really did.

With a short huff all of the tension remaining in Seto's shoulders leaked out. He blinked the tears out of his eyes and turned his body towards me as I reached up ready to catch him. Abruptly he stopped moving and glanced down to the dagger.

"Tch?"

"Is everything okay?" I asked cautiously. The mood was gloomy but finally felt a little hopeful and I didn't want anything to ruin it but the way Seto's face scrunched up in confusion as he tried pulling away again set me on high alert. It sort of looked like he was stuck. He tried to separate from Blue-Eyes one last time with a sharp yank. "I can't move." He realized, the abrupt motion causing him to lean back just enough for me to get a good look at the slick black ooze binding his sludge-blackened hands to the hilt. It tightened around them as he started struggling and quickly began to climb up his arms like evil ivy. Trying to wiggle free only made it grow faster as Seto cringed and jerked away as best he could.

"Hang on!" I shouted up at him, holding out Mokuba's Blue-Eyes card and aiming it towards the thick gooey mess covering his hands to try and banish the sludge back.

"'Hang on', 'let go', make up your mind." Seto drawled sarcastically through gritted-teeth, the deadpan humor seeming really inappropriate as he struggled against the tar now spreading across his shoulders.

"You think the battle over after merely vomiting pleasantries?" Anubis's voice mocked, gaining volume as both of the gurgling Blue-Eyes heads finished regrowing. They bared their teeth at me in unison and watched me with beady eyes. "Your words come too late, pest." He taunted as Seto whole-heartedly thrashed to get away from the dragon's chest. "This soul is now mine!"

"Not while I have this!" I shouted back, holding up Mokuba's Blue-Eyes as it began to shine. I could feel the strength of its benevolence warm my fingers as I brandished it at the dragon. "So long as Mokuba's Blue-Eyes is protecting us there's nothing you can-"

A lump caught in my throat and my eyes went wide as a swipe from Blue-Eyes' tail sent me crashing to the floor. "Ouch!" My chin ached and I bit into my lip to taste iron as the card slid out of my hand and across the floor. In a split second the dragon talon closest to me raised up and stomped down on the hand-made card, tacky tendrils of slime sliding down the face of the cartoonish Blue-Eyes drawing as Anubis raised the dragon's claw back up and tensed it. Mokuba's card sank into its wet black flesh like it was being swallowed by sinking mud, drowning the white paper as it was absorbed into the rotten mulch.

"Uhh..." I stared at the monster's empty talon in disbelief as someone who I distantly realized was Seto yelled "Idiot!" at me from the sidelines.

"Mwhahaha ha! You make this too easy!" Anubis roared, his voice becoming louder and deeper as the black dragon heaved ominously. Its grunge-coated scales split apart as it began to swell in size, it's chest bursting open as it grew and started sucking Seto and the dagger further into the monster's torso.

"Ghrnnnnn!" Seto's eye's went wide with fear as he was absorbed into Blue-Eyes, his whole body being dragged into it like quick sand. "Yugi!" He called out, glancing back at me desperately as the muck oozed across his face to completely cover him.

"Seto! No!" The outline of his body in the dragon's chest disappeared completely as Blue-Eyes' rapid enlargement swallowed him whole.

The dragon opened its wings out wide, its silhouette changing into something new and familiar as a third head burst out of its neck with a flurry of mud. The dark sigils on each of the three dragon heads was almost impossible to make out against its pitch black body as Blue-Eyes Ultimate dragon snarled down at me menacingly.

"Now the real battle begins!" Anubis announced, the declaration echoing in the triple-headed dragon's terrible roar.

My head felt like it was going to split open as it made the observation room quake. The glass at the end of the deck shattered loudly, drifting eerily into outer space as a piece of heavy metal scaffolding above my head was shaken free from the ceiling and came crashing down towards me in a shower of nuts and bolts.

The Dark Magician was a purple blur as he flashed to my side and grabbed me by the shoulder, the feeling of his fingers only registering in my brain about a second later as he sped me back to Yami and dropped me out of harm's way.

"Thanks, partner." I managed to wheeze out as soon as the room stopped spinning from the hasty deceleration and my breath caught up to my lungs.

Yami nodded sharply, not taking his eyes off of our opponent as he stretched out his hand. "Dark Magician Girl! I summon you!" In a shower of glowing pink hearts the Dark Magician Girl blazed into being just as miraculously as the Dark Magician had. She tapped her rod to her shoulder and winked at us before taking point next to the Dark Magician. The two floated in the air with steely expressions that perfectly matched Yami's own as they sized up Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon.

All three of its snouts contorted into cruel smirks as they met Yami's glare. "Go ahead, 'my Pharaoh'. Summon your holograms." Anubis goaded, alternating between speaking from each of the dragon's three heads as all six of its eyes leered at us. "You are too late to prevent my rebirth." The center head bragged before falling silent as the left one continued. "Through my magic I have gorged on the Ba of the High Priest and shall soon finish consuming Seto Kaiba's too!" A blob of wet black slime fell from the jaws of the right head as snickered in finality "Their spirit energy combined will fuel the creation of my new body! A perfect body!" All three of Blue-Eyes' heads threw themselves backward and bellowed with Anubis's malicious laughter. "And with it the living world shall be mine! Mwhahahah ha!"

"Hrrrrr." Yami growled beside me. "We have to stop him."

"Hey, look!" I pointed upwards towards the dragon's chest as it heaved, the cyan light from the observation deck's futuristic illumination rippling over the monster's chest strangely. It bounced off of a small bump that throbbed and kicked as the skin over Blue-Eyes' heart flexed, like something was trying to push its way out of the monster's body. "It's Seto!"

It had to be! Seto was in there! He was still okay!

"Partner! I have an idea." The words where out of my mouth in an instant as I fixed my eyes on the moving lump. In my peripheral vision Yami turned to me and listened.

"Can you keep the heads busy while I go after Kaiba?" I questioned as my gaze narrowed in on my target. There was no way I was letting Seto be absorbed into that thing.

"Of course." Yami replied with a short quirk of his head before sharing a look with his two Magicians. The Dark Magician blinked slowly in acceptance of the unspoken order while the Dark Magician Girl nodded enthusiastically. "We'll cover you." He added firmly. "Dark Magician!" With a quick movement the Dark Magician thrust his hand towards the right-most head of the slimy dragon, blasting it apart with a Dark Magic attack. It splattered to the floor and the neck stump it left behind stayed still for just a second before it started to writhe again. "Dark Magician Girl!" He shouted out next, pointing at left "You too! Use Dark Burning Attack!" Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon coiled its necks backwards, roaring loudly as the Dark Magician Girl twirled out of the strike of one of the heads and channeled a massive Dark Burning Attack in retaliation. It bounded towards the left head causing it to explode into slurry that wetly rained onto the floor. The remaining head snarled furiously, Anubis's voice exclaiming "Insolent fools!" from its mouth before firing out a single Neutron Blast that the Dark Magician deflected with a strike of his staff.

"Holograms or not, you'll have to try harder than that to defeat my Magicians, Anubis" Yami loudly boasted. I'd never really liked trash-talk but I sure missed the confident rush of energy Atem used to get as he did it. I could practically feel it from here as his mouth cut into a mocking grin and eyes flashed with pleasure. With a curl of his finger and a matching smirk on his lips the Magician silently taunted the dragon to try attacking again.

"Rawwwwwwwr!"

That was my cue!

With two heads regrowing and the last one totally fixated on the magicians I began running towards Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. "Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea!" I chanted to myself as I sprinted for the monster's chest, swerving not to be hit by a stray lightning beam while Anubis raged and chased the Dark Magician around the observation room with Neutron Blasts. A giant holographic projector, or something that lit up like one, dropped from the ceiling right into my path as the attacks struck the room randomly. Yami and his monsters each flashed for a fraction of a second as it powered down and I vaulted over it. Another Dark Burning Attack sailed over my head as I kept my eyes locked on the faint movement in Blue-Eye's chest and raced the rest of the way to the dragon's clawed feet.

"How am I going to get up there?" I stared upwards at the shifting lump. There wasn't much time to figure it out! Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon's missing heads had already almost finished reforming. They both writhed and flailed as the final features of their nostrils, eye sockets and tusks began to gain shape and solidify out of the dripping gunk. "Hey!" I waved my hands up at the Dark Magician Girl as she flew overhead to smack the center Blue-Eyes head squarely across its muzzle with her rod before flitting away as the Dark Magician followed up with a powerful ranged attack. She glanced down and darted to my side in a flash of pink and blue. Her hair was slightly singed but she winked at me cheerfully as she followed my eyes upwards. "I need to get closer." I explained in a rush. She frowned thoughtfully before her bright emerald eyes sparkled. A timely Dark Magic attack stuck Blue-Eyes squarely in the jaw as the Dark Magician Girl assaulted its hind leg with another burst of magical energy. With a snarl the dragon lurched towards the ground. "Great idea!" I praised, watching as her cute smile only got bigger in response. "Keep it busy, okay?"

Now was my chance!

Even off-balance and partially toppled over the dragon was still way taller than me but I was finally close enough to get a good look at its torso as something that looked suspiciously like a little fist beat on the scales from the inside.

"Seto!" I called out, standing on the tips of my toes and reaching towards the impact as it abruptly doubted in force at the sound of my voice. "Keep fighting!" I shouted, realizing how completely redundant saying something like that was immediately afterwards. This was Kaiba, after all. He was brave, stubborn and always willing to fight for what he wanted – just like all of my other friends! With an especially hard strike Blue-Eyes wet skin parted across Seto's knuckles. "That's it!" I encouraged. A set of mucky fingers forcing themselves through the opening and I grasped for them. "Just a little further!" My fingertips grazed the end of Seto's as I stretched as far as I could towards him. "I can almost-" my palm found his as it forced itself out of the sludge, his fingers groping blindly as I managed to skim his skin again. "-reach!" His small hand locked around mine and gripped onto me like a vice as I yanked back, hauling Seto towards me with all of my strength. "Come on, Seto!" I gritted out, my voice straining with the effort it took to fight against the suction of Blue-Eyes' goopy torso. "Jussssst a bit more!" I told his arm as it was pulled free up to the elbow, the fabric of his pajamas completely soaked through. "I got you- Ahhh!" I skidded forward as my hold on his hand slipped and Seto was pulled back into Blue-Eyes all the way to his wrist!

"And so do I!" Yami's voice proclaimed from behind me.

He locked our fingers together to become an unbreakable chain as Yami pulled planted his feet and braced, lending his strength to the human tug of war. "Yugi!" He ground out with determination, his eyebrows arching downwards, "Together! On three!"

"You got it, partner!" I nodded back, knowing that there was nothing we couldn't do when we were together.

"One!" He declared, the grip of our hands around each other tightening.

"Two! I added, squeezing Seto's fingers with mine.

"Three!" We shouted in unison, bracing in tandem as if we were still bound together in a single body. "PULL!"

"SLUUUUURRRP!"

With a gross sucking noise Seto's arm and the right side of his body slowly came free of Blue-Eyes' body. Seto coughed and gasped for air, cringing as his left side snagged behind him. Was he caught on something still inside of Blue-Eyes? It didn't matter. Nothing stood a chance against all us working as a team! "Heave!" Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon screamed in pain as Seto's left hand burst free of the monster's torso, his body careening through the air towards us. Ooze erupted out of the hole he'd left behind as the sudden lack of resistance caused the momentum of our final pull to send all three of us tumbling backwards.

"Hrrr."

"Ahhhh!"

"Oof!"

Yami steadied me by the shoulders to stop me from slamming in the wall behind us as I caught Seto and pulled him to me to try and protect him. Mud dripped from his hair and slid down his face as he spluttered and hacked against me.

"Are you okay?" I asked, trying not to sound as worried as I really was.

"Just great." He sourly choked back. Vaguely irritated blue eyes glared up at me as I supported him. That was all the confirmation I needed. The look eased up just a little as I warmly smiled down at him, relieved to see that he was okay. With a little huff of embarrassment he looked away from me sharply and glanced down at his hand. His knuckles were so pale from the strain of keeping his fingers wrapped around something that they'd turned white.

"You pulled out the dagger!" I noticed with surprise, staring passed Seto as it dropped from his hand to clatter onto the metal floor of the space station. Yami's eyebrows shot up. He glanced to the tar-stained blade and then back up to Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon as the Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl landed in front of us, both moving one foot forward and raising up their staves into guarding positions.

"Noooooo! My completion! My perfection!" Anubis roared out, the sound itself tearing open a gap in the wall opposite us as the observation deck shook with his fury, "Curse you all!" He bellowed, spit flying from the jaws of all three Blue-Eyes heads as they snatched upwards and howled in agony. They thrashed and screamed, turning on each other and biting at their necks and wings as a glowing pin-prick of light abruptly beamed out from the knife-sized gap in its chest Seto had left behind that dribbled and wept viscous black gore. The tiny crack of light didn't stay that way for long. It split apart before our eyes, lancing outward in every direction in fragmenting lines that looked a lot like the time Joey accidentally broke one of the display cases in Grandpa's shop. The sludge that coated Blue-Eyes hardened and fractured as the web of light spread across the dragon's body from its chest all the way to the tips of its extremities.

"What's happening?" I asked Seto, shouting to be heard over the noise.

"How should I know?" Seto barked back with a wince as he squirmed and tried to escape my hold.

"Anubis's dark magic is falling apart." Yami observed from behind us. He began to stand up as his holographic eyes narrowed in anticipation. The dark shell fell from Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon in heavy flakes, breaking away everywhere that the light touched. "It appears your control over the Blue-Eyes White Dragon has reached its end, Anubis!" He announced boldly while a smirk spread across his face.

"Bmmmmmfffff!"

In an explosion of light and hot energy the husk cracked open completely and blasted away from Blue-Eyes, shattering into glittering black shards that scattered across the floor. The lights of the observation deck flared brightly as the dragon's true white scales shone beneath them.

"Graaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!" Anubis howled with rage, his voicing dimming as Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon raised its head up and roared victoriously, finally free.


End file.
